


when i saw my reflection (it was a stranger beneath my face)

by weareallmadeofstardust



Series: family is family (even in its reflection) [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Batkids Age Reversal, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Death, Child Neglect, Emotional Manipulation, Family Dynamics, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, POV Tim Drake, Suicidal Ideation, Temporary Character Death, Tim Drake-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 07:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 40,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28347936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weareallmadeofstardust/pseuds/weareallmadeofstardust
Summary: Tim Drake never planned to be Robin, but when Damian Wayne leaves the mantle vacant, he realizes Batman needs a partner. It’s only meant to be temporary.When Tim dies, he realizes something else:Gotham needs Batman, but Gotham needs a monster, too.
Relationships: Bart Allen & Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent & Cassie Sandsmark, Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake, Tim Drake & Alfred Pennyworth, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Duke Thomas, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Owens & Zeddmore Washington & Prudence Wood, Tim Drake & Ra's al Ghul
Series: family is family (even in its reflection) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075976
Comments: 28
Kudos: 268





	when i saw my reflection (it was a stranger beneath my face)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! a few notes:
> 
> -this fic is chronologically parallel to the previous fic in this series, but there are aspects that won’t make sense if you haven’t read that one, so make sure to do that first.  
> -the title is from the lament of eustace scrubb by the oh hellos  
> -this fic includes mentions of child abuse and neglect, brief racism, suicidal ideation, the death of a child (it’s temporary, but the scene is included), dehumanization, manipulation, the death of a parent in front of their child, and a lot of murder. if anything on that list is triggering for you, please do not read this fic- your comfort and safety is more valuable  
> -this fic, like the previous one, only exists because of the help of my friends Ace and Alex, who helped with the au, encouraged me, helped with a lot of the plot, and listened to me complain. they are good-ho-mens here and on tumblr and alexdoesthearts on tumblr, respectively.

Timothy Drake was an unusual child.

He was quiet, and clever, and lonely, and he lived with a family of ghosts, or he might as well have. He was gifted and polite and the notes on all of his report cards called him “a pleasure to have in class” and they sat unread on his parents’ desk.

He had an odd way about him, a way of watching people that left them uneasy, as if his gaze peeled away all of the masks they held onto so tightly, as if he could stare down to their very bones. He looked at people like they were machinery, that he could take apart and examine and put back together once he’d learned what made them tick.

He was also a very kind child, not that anyone was around to notice.

Clever, and unsettling, and kind, and painfully, _desperately_ lonely.

The Drakes took their son to galas starting when he was five, as at that point he was old enough to behave when left unmonitored for the evening, and still small enough that he could be paraded around like a show pony, cute and innocent and _oh, Janet, he’s such a dear, you must be so proud!_

Of course, they only liked him until he started to speak. Being psychoanalyzed by a child who didn’t even come up to your waist was, apparently, upsetting.

The only child even remotely close to his age was Damian Wayne, who was also an unusual child, the kind that the tittering, glittery socialites the Drakes found so despicable and yet would do anything for the favor of would whisper over, wonder what _had_ gone so wrong when he was raised, it must be that mother of his, the foreign one, you _know_ how they are. It wasn’t quite the same, and Damian cared much less about the whispers and murmurs; he remained cold and aloof and fiercely proud; but it was similar.

In this, Tim found a sort of one-sided kinship. Damian never even spoke to him, likely didn’t even know he existed, but it was comforting, the idea that he wasn’t alone in never quite fitting into the mold that Gotham’s diamond-encrusted liars designed.

The other comfort he found was Batman and Robin.

Tim had been barely old enough to remember when Batman arrived, or when Robin joined him. Sometimes, when his parents had been gone for very long and the emptiness of the house echoed in the emptiness inside him, he climbed up on the roof and stared at the sky, imagining that they would fall from the stars and take him away, that maybe they would teach him to fly like they did.

Then he’d feel guilty, because his parents _did_ love him, he had good things, and who was he to wish that Batman and Robin would save him when there were so many people in Gotham who needed them more?

When Tim was nine years old, Bruce Wayne held a gala. He liked the Wayne galas- he didn’t invite some of the more horrible people, and they were usually fundraisers, which he thought were a lot nicer than the galas where it was just rich people showing off for each other. Plus, the Waynes were kind when he spoke to them, which admittedly wasn’t much, and he liked to watch them. His mother said that Bruce Wayne was stupid, with more money than brains, but Tim didn’t see it.

The Wayne galas were also some of the most prone to trouble, as were the Waynes themselves- it came with being the richest person in the city, while also looking like an easy target, because most people thought like Janet did and even his lasting friendship with Commissioner Gordon didn’t really stop kidnappers and thieves from trying their luck.

Or, sometimes, criminals who just saw all of Gotham’s richest in one building and decided it was easy pickings.

The first gunshots came when Tim was standing by the table with refreshments, watching as Bruce Wayne argued quietly with his son, their voices too low for Tim to make out what they were saying. They looked up immediately at the sound, faces going hard and sharp, rather than frantic and terrified like Tim would have anticipated.

Maybe they were just used to this by now. Or maybe it was something else.

Bruce Wayne relaxed suddenly, his nearly soldierlike bearing softening in an instant into something more like the rest of the socialites- soft, terrified, and utterly emptyheaded.

Damian, on the other hand, started moving away from the crowd, along the wall. He almost tripped over Tim and looked down, frowning.

“Where are your parents?” he murmured, crouching.

“Mom is somewhere in there,” Tim said, pointing to the mass of people. Damian tutted.

“Come with me. There’s a hidden passage out of this room that they won’t have guarded- you can hide in there until this is over.”

Damian led him away, footsteps making barely any noise on the tile, until they ducked behind a curtain and Damian traced his fingertips over the wall, muttering to himself under his breath.

“There,” he whispered, fingers finding a hairline seam in the wall. He swung out a panel of the wall, their movements obscured by the curtain, and Tim gaped for a moment before remembering himself and scrambling inside.

Damian tapped the inside of the panel. “There’s a hidden peephole here that you can use to look out. If someone comes, look to see who it is. If it isn’t myself or Father, then run the other way down the tunnel; that will put you in the kitchen, and from there you can find a place to hide in the house or a way to get out.”

“What about you?” Tim asked, although he was beginning to think Damian was far more capable than even the criminals.

“Don’t worry about me,” Damian said, something cunning and dangerous in the curve of his smile. “Things will be fine.”

Somehow, Tim believed him.

Damian shut the panel, and Tim hugged his knees to his chest, trying to listen.

Gunshots sounded in the room, followed by screaming, the sound of shattering glass. A voice- low, male, without the polished accent that Gotham’s richest perfected- was shouting.

Then, barely minutes later, there was the sound of bodies thudding, a patter of gunfire, and someone shouted, _“Robin!”_

Tim sat up straight, eyes going wide.

Robin was _here._ Robin was here, but the first gunshots had been only a few minutes ago, and Wayne Manor was more than that from the city, at least with traffic. And there hadn’t been time for Gordon to light the Batsignal much less for them to react to it, so- had Robin already been here?

The look on Damian’s face, the way that the Waynes had reacted to the gunfire, like it was an instinct to act- how Bruce had relaxed, and now no one was yelling Batman’s name- Damian had disappeared and Robin had appeared, almost in the same moment- how Bruce Wayne almost seemed deliberately stupid at times, like he was faking it-

Was it _possible?_

The sounds of fighting continued for a while longer, before there were footsteps coming towards him. Tim stood on tiptoe to look out of the peephole and was met with Bruce Wayne’s worried face.

The panel swung open, and Bruce smiled at him. “Hey, kiddo.”

“Is it over?” Tim asked.

Bruce nodded, holding out his arms, and Tim let himself be lifted up and rested on his hip. “I called the police, but I guess Robin got here first.”

“Guess so,” Tim said, distantly.

The Boy Wonder was standing in the middle of the room, cape and dark armor looking out of place against the flashing, gilded gala decorations, but he seemed suspiciously at home in Wayne Manor. Tim stared at him as Bruce carried him closer. 

“Thank you for your help, Robin,” Bruce said. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

“My pleasure,” Robin said. His voice didn’t have the same accent as Damian Wayne’s- it was vague and without any strong identifying features, impossible to place. But the smile that slashed across his face, dangerous and secretive- the familiarity between Bruce Wayne and Robin, that _shouldn’t_ be there-

Robin turned to look at him, and Tim hid his face in Bruce’s shoulder, suddenly shy.

“You should get the boy back to his parents, Mr. Wayne,” Damian- Robin- _Damian_ said. “The police will be here soon. I have to go.”

Bruce nodded, then looked at Tim. “What’s your name?”

“Tim,” he said. “Timothy Drake.”

“Janet’s boy?” He waited until Tim nodded. “Let’s see if we can find her then.”

Janet was almost out the door by the time they caught up to her, and she blinked at Tim, like she’d forgotten he was there. Maybe she had.

Tim listened through the _oh, thank you so much, Bruce_ and the _of course, Janet,_ and reluctantly followed his mother as she hurried away.

Bruce was silhouetted in the open doorway, watching them go, shoulders broad and lined with strength.

Batman was watching them leave.

Tim turned back around and followed his mother.

A week later, when Janet had left on another trip, he took his camera and headed into the city.

The longer he watched them, the more certain Tim became.

His first pictures weren’t very good- most of the time, his hands were shaking too badly to get a proper picture. Plus, Batman and Robin both wore dark, muted colors that didn’t stand out much against the shadows. They usually didn’t stay still for long, either.

Still, Tim got better. He made friends with the street kids and the working girls, started to bring food and money to give away, learned all he could from them- places to avoid, how not to look like an easy target, how to climb rickety fire escapes without losing his grip. He pieced together patrol routes and schedules, and soon enough he wasn’t trying to follow them around the city; he waited for them instead.

His pictures got clearer, and by the time Signal appeared, he knew the city well, and the Bats even better.

Tim didn’t tell his parents about his hobby, not that they ever asked- he could take care of himself, and by the time he was ten the housekeeper came twice a week to make dinners that could be reheated for the rest of the time and clean the house of dust, and other than that his time was his own. No one noticed he was gone, nor would they have noticed if he was missing- the one time he got hurt, slipping off a fire escape, landing on his arm with a sickening crack and flare of pain, his friends helped him to the bus stop and he walked five minutes back home, cradling his camera with more care than he did his arm. The housekeeper came the next morning and drove him to the hospital, and he repeated the same lie- _I fell down the stairs, I fell down the stairs, I fell down the stairs-_ and no one looked at him twice.

The cast was gone by the time his parents returned. He wasn’t sure if they were even told.

Batman and Robin didn’t seem to notice him following them. Neither did Signal, though he thought he saw him do a double take once or twice, or Spoiler, when she joined. Tim was fine with that. If they saw him, they would probably tell him to go home, and he didn’t want to go home. Not back to his empty house with more silence and space than Tim could fill.

Tim snapped a picture of the four of them sitting on a rooftop, once. They were hardly ever in one place, now that Robin was nearly eighteen and, from what Tim could tell, straining for some independence. But there they were, sitting on the roof, feet hanging over the edge, capes mere dark shadows behind them. They were eating ice cream, and Robin and Spoiler were poking at each other and acting annoyed but Tim could see they really weren’t, and Batman was smiling at them all like he loved them because he did.

For a moment, Tim wished he could be one of them, then shook himself out of it. It was a foolish dream, childish and unrealistic. He wasn’t anyone special, not like they were. And he saw them get shot or punched or stabbed whenever he managed to catch a glimpse of a fight.

He wasn’t anyone special, even if he’d figured out who they were at nine, even if he could run and climb and scramble over rooftops better than most. He was just… Tim.

He was never going to be one of them, but that was fine. He was happy just to watch them, admire them from a distance, take pictures of them when he got the chance.

Tim climbed down from the roof. It was almost two, and though the Bats would be out for a while longer, the last bus back to his house was coming soon.

Tim stared out the window of the bus as it started to rain, traveling back to his house of ghosts, and thought about how Robin laughed like he had nothing to lose.

When Damian Wayne turned eighteen, Robin disappeared.

It wasn’t unusual for one of them to be missing for a while, especially if they’d been injured. But he hadn’t been, and he didn’t return.

Batman was falling apart. That, more than anything, convinced him that Robin wasn’t coming back.

He was more brutal, criminals surfacing more beaten, harsher than necessary. And at the same time, he was less effective- walking away with worse injuries and less convictions. Spoiler and Signal were doing what they could, but Batman didn’t need Spoiler and Signal. Batman needed _Robin._

Damian Wayne resurfaced in Bludhaven at nearly the same time Nightwing and Flamebird made their first appearance, dismantling one of the gangs that had plagued Gotham’s sister city for nearly a decade. They were working quickly, and being dramatic, flashy, visible, more than the Bats had ever been.

Most of the local news outlets didn’t seem to know what to make of the new vigilantes, or where they had come from. Those who were familiar with the Gotham vigilantes- which was very few- recognized the similarities between Nightwing and Robin, but there weren’t many pictures of Robin to compare with.

At least, there weren’t many that weren’t in the hands of Tim.

A few weeks after Nightwing appeared, Robin was back. But it wasn’t the same Robin.

Tim recognized Spoiler immediately as she chased after Batman, leaping between buildings without quite the same effortless ease as Damian had had, but with skill- she’d been doing it for a year now.

The new Robin only lasted about a month, punctuated by fights on a dozen different rooftops, their voices too quiet and far for Tim to hear them but both of them gesticulating wildly. Signal, when he was there, seemed to take Robin’s side.

After a month, Robin was gone again, and Batgirl was left in her place.

Batman got worse and worse, falling into his own darkness, and Tim watched from afar, something heavy and unsettled running through his veins.

Gotham needed Batman. Batman needed Robin.

No one else was going to step up.

Tim made his choice.

Bruce didn’t like the idea. Actually, he was pretty sure Bruce didn’t like _Tim._ It stung, a bit, but he wasn’t going to back down. He’d come too far for that.

Bruce didn’t want another Robin, but Stephanie- Steph- and Alfred agreed with him. He was needed, so Robin he would become.

Training was hard. He took to the detective side of the work quickly, but the fighting was less intuitive. He wasn’t the fighter Damian had been, and probably never would be- training since birth was something that he could never catch up to. Still, he was capable, good enough to keep up with Steph and Duke.

He wasn’t Damian, but he never would be, and he knew that. Batman needed Robin but that didn’t mean Robin couldn’t change.

Bruce still didn’t want him, but he started to change his mind the first time Tim saved his life, and Steph and Duke called him their friend and Alfred called him “Master Timothy” and he found his place, slowly but surely.

They caught the Riddler, and Jim Gordon asked where Robin was.

“He’s right here,” Batman said, and Tim could barely keep from grinning.

He was Robin. And maybe he wasn’t a Wayne, maybe he never would be, even if Bruce had already been a better father than Jack Drake ever was, but he wasn’t just watching from the sidelines anymore.

Tim had always admired Damian, ever since he’d been a lonely child at galas, ever since he’d been listening to the sound of gunshots and Damian had smiled at him, sharp and cunning and confident, and told him everything would be fine, and Tim couldn’t help but believe him. Ever since he’d realized that both of his heroes were the same person, and it had made almost too much sense, ever since Tim had been watching him flying through the air like something almost more than human.

He’d hoped, maybe foolishly, that Damian would be pleased he was Robin. That even though he was gone, off in Bludhaven with Flamebird, he would be happy that the name he had made into a legend was still alive, that Batman and Robin wouldn’t become a thing of the past. That when Bruce had needed someone, Tim was there.

Damian had left a lot to live up to, and Tim didn’t have any illusions that he succeeded, but he did his best to honor the name, the suit, the legacy on his shoulders. He’d imagined that Damian would teach him the things he was missing, how to be _Robin,_ the things that no one else could teach him.

Even if he decided he wanted Robin back, Tim would have accepted that. He was only necessary in Damian’s absence; Batman needed a Robin, but that Robin didn’t have to be him. If Damian wanted it back, or someone better came along, Tim would step aside. He wasn’t the first Robin; there was nothing saying he would be the last, either. If Damian wanted it back, Tim would have let Robin go.

Damian… wasn’t pleased he was Robin. He didn’t want it back but he didn’t want Tim to be Robin, either.

He was cold and proud and dangerous, like an apex predator, and Tim was encroaching on his territory. Tim was taking what was his, and that made him a threat to be eliminated.

He wasn’t a very formidable threat. Tim fought him knowing he would lose, knowing that he would never be strong enough for Damian, knowing that all of his work and training was meaningless in the face of eighteen years of skill earned with blood. Damian was like a tempered blade, and Tim? Tim was just the stand-in.

The pretender, as Damian put it.

Tim stayed on the floor long after Damian had left, his intestines turned to ice, his throat sore where Damian had pressed the end of the staff against it.

Steph pulled him to his feet and into a hug, and he let her, dropping his head against her shoulder.

“He’s always been an asshole, ignore him,” she whispered. “And he’s _wrong._ You are good enough.”

Tim swallowed, hiding his face in her shoulder. Damian had seemed so _furious,_ so cold and vicious, infuriated with Bruce as much as Tim.

He didn’t want this. He’d never wanted this.

Bruce was staring after Damian, face unreadable. After a long moment, he turned to Tim.

“Damian has always been… proud,” he said. “And he is protective over the things he sees as his. But his disapproval doesn’t make you any less Robin.”

Tim didn’t respond. Bruce may approve of him, but Robin wasn’t Bruce’s.

“Okay,” Tim said finally.

Steph hugged him tighter for a moment, then let go.

Duke clapped him on the shoulder lightly, crossing over to stand by Bruce. “You didn’t tell him?”

“He didn’t seem inclined to talk to me,” Bruce muttered.

Tim rubbed at his throat and went to put his staff away, trying not to think.

He was Robin. He was.

Even if he would never really be good enough for it.

Tim’s first major injury in the mask came nearly six months in, after a grueling week beginning with an Arkham breakout and ending with Tim taking Killer Croc on on his own, and being thrown into a wall in the process. At the end of the night, Croc was behind bars, but Tim had a badly split lip and two cracked ribs, plus a broken wrist.

“Won’t your parents ask questions?” Steph asked from where she was perched on the opposite cot, elbows on her knees, watching as Alfred wiped blood off his face.

Tim shook his head. “They’re in… Brazil, I think? They won’t be home for months.”

Bruce frowned at that, coming closer. “Who’s staying with you, then?”

“No one,” Tim said. “The housekeeper comes over twice a week but she doesn’t live there.”

The Cave went silent, and Alfred’s hands stilled.

“What?” Tim asked, anxiety pooling in the bottom of his stomach at the looks on their faces. “I can take care of myself.”

“Tim,” Duke said slowly. “Your parents leave you at home alone for months while they go overseas?”

“Yes?”

Bruce looked furious for a moment, and Tim forced himself not to flinch. After a moment, the man relaxed, although there was still a hard set to his jaw.

“How long have they been leaving you at home alone?” he asked.

“Since I was ten,” Tim said. “That’s when they got rid of the nanny, I mean.”

“So from the time you were ten years old, they have been leaving you at home alone, with the housekeeper only coming over twice a week.”

“Yeah,” Tim said, still confused. “The only reason I could go and follow you guys at night was because no one cared where I was.”

Everyone was staring at him, and he hunched his shoulders, avoiding their eyes. “I don’t get what the issue is.”

Finally, Alfred returned to wiping his cuts clean, the cloth soft and cool on his face. “Oh, my boy. You should not have been so terribly alone. I’m sorry that we didn’t notice.”

“I’m fine,” Tim said. “It’s not like they’re bad parents or anything.”

“Good parents don’t leave their kids alone,” Steph said, leaning forwards to take Tim’s good hand. “They don’t leave.”

“They love me,” Tim said uselessly.

Bruce came closer and leaned forwards, pressing a kiss to Tim’s forehead. He blinked, even as his insides went warm. He’d only seen Bruce do that when Duke was recovering from fear toxin.

“I’m sorry that we didn’t see, Tim,” he murmured. “You deserve better.”

Tim took a small, shuddery breath.

A week later, the investigation into Jack and Janet Drake’s neglect began, and three months later, Tim Drake became Tim Drake-Wayne.

It was odd, never having to go back to an empty house again, never having to wonder if his parents would be home in time for the next holiday or his birthday or if they’d just send a postcard ten days late again, never having to wonder where anyone in his family was, if they were even in the same country he last thought they were. Steph and Duke took to having him for a brother with enthusiasm, and it was nearly overwhelming.

And living at the Manor full time, he got more hugs than he’d ever had in his _life._

Neither Bruce nor Alfred were particularly huggy people, but Steph was, and Duke liked to touch people even if he wasn’t as much of a cuddler as Steph. Suddenly Tim was being hugged, pulled around by the hand, getting taps on the arm and elbows on his shoulders, and it was… odd. Not bad, but… Tim hadn’t been hugged in _years,_ before meeting them. Even his friends in the city had never done more than patting his shoulder or grabbing his arm if he was about to do something stupid.

It was… amazing. Tim hadn’t realized how much he had wanted a family who was there until he had it.

Things were _good._ Even if Bludhaven was still strictly off limits and Damian Wayne and Timothy Drake-Wayne had never been seen in the same place, things were good.

Tim had a _family._ A real family. The one he’d wished he had since he was nine years old.

It was odd, but… incredible.

Tim had been Robin for a year the first time he met his best friends.

He’d never joined the Teen Titans- they were Damian’s team, and Tim had no interest in getting closer to Damian than he had to be. He hadn’t intended on having his own team, either, not really.

It was weird, meeting other teenage heroes, especially when he was one of the only ones without powers. Most vigilantes who were close to his age knew Damian, since he was the only one who had been on a team outside of Gotham, other than Bruce. Because of that, Tim hadn’t really tried to reach out to any of them. But none of the others on Young Justice ever saw him as just Damian’s replacement, or a subpar placeholder- he was Robin, just Robin, free of the expectations that even the other Bats held, though he knew they didn’t mean to.

He liked them. More than he had expected to. Kon knew the weight of a legacy as well as he did- his brother-slash-predecessor-slash-clone-template’s-son was Damian’s best friend, a legend, one of the first to be a hero. Kon had just as big of shoes to fill as he did. And Bart was hyper and funny and kind, and Cassie was the strongest person he knew, and all of them struggled under the weight of their mentors’ legacies in a way Tim imagined Damian never had. He felt more _himself_ with them than he almost ever did, even if none of them knew his name.

The mountain became home, as much as the Batcave, and Young Justice his family. They clicked well together, in and outside of their masks. They had sleepovers together and stayed up too late and did stupid things because they were teenagers and they deserved to, and they were there for each other, when they needed it.

They worked with the Teen Titans sometimes, when it couldn’t be avoided. Damian usually didn’t go on those missions, though Tim knew that he was their leader, and was there for most Titan missions- just not the ones where he would have to interact with Tim. Instead, Flamebird usually led those missions, and he was always polite but vaguely uncomfortable around Tim in a way that made him feel… small.

But he was Robin, whether or not Jon Kent thought he should be, unless and until Damian decided to return to it. The Titans and Young Justice were separate entities, and their joint missions were occasional, at most; outside of them, Tim never even saw Nightwing and Flamebird, and that was fine with him.

Still, their shared missions were never something he looked forward to, especially if Damian decided to take part. He was coldly indifferent to Tim’s face, but made barbed comments to Jon within his earshot, about his skill, his discipline, his effort, his theft of what was Damian’s.

“I don’t get why he’s such an asshole about you, Rob,” Kon muttered, glaring at Damian, who glared right back.

“Maybe he’s just an asshole in general,” Bart suggested. “I dunno, it’s not like you did anything to him.”

“I took his spot,” Tim said, turning away. “We should just get back to the cleanup. It’s fine.”

“The Titans don’t need us for that,” Cassie said, draping an arm over his shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

Tim let himself drop his head against her arm, breath coming in a shaky huff.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Let’s go home.”

They abandoned their beds that night, ending up in a puddle on the couch, bodies curled into each other. Tim stared up at the ceiling in the dim light, trying not to think.

“Hey.” Kon turned to look at him, blue eyes inches from his own. “What’s on your mind?”

Tim sighed, and the exhale shook. “I don’t… I wish he didn’t hate me so much.”

Bart draped himself across Tim’s body, resting his head against his shoulder. “Nightwing?”

“Yeah.” Tim closed his eyes. “I just… I admired him, you know? When I was a kid. Basically forever, honestly. And I thought-”

Tim stopped, and Kon leaned forwards, rested their foreheads together.

“I wanted him to like me,” Tim admitted. “I wanted him to be my brother.”

Cassie took his hand and squeezed it.

“You have a family,” Kon said quietly. “And you have us.”

“I know,” Tim said. “But I just- he was _Robin._ And I wanted him to love me.”

Bart looped an arm around him, chin hooked over Tim’s shoulder, and Cassie took both his hands in hers, her skin warm against his, and Kon pressed his forehead to Tim’s, wrapped a hand around the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Bart said, quiet. “It isn’t fair.”

“But you’re not alone,” Cassie added. She was soft and sincere and when Tim opened his eyes to look at her, she was almost shining in the dim light. “And his opinion doesn’t make you worth less. You don’t need him.”

“You’re good enough,” Kon said, and he was staring at Tim, intent, his eyes like the Smallville summer sky, impossibly blue, and they felt like home. “You are, Tim. You’re good enough.”

Tim closed his eyes and cried.

Arkham breakouts were always the _worst._ All of them had to be working around the clock for as long as it took to get the Rogues back off the streets- every moment that they took to rest, innocent people were put in danger. And because usually, several of the heavy-hitters escaped at once, they had to split up. Tim liked the freedom to patrol on his own, normally; but when it came to Rogues it was always better to have backup.

There were still rules about it, of course- none of them other than Bruce were allowed to take the Joker on alone, and they had to be on the comms at all times. Still, Tim usually came out the other side injured.

This one was worse than most. Nine inmates had escaped, and three of those were unaccounted for, including the Joker. When the Joker went underground, it spelled trouble, and it set all of them on edge.

Four days in, they had gotten Croc and Penguin back in jail, and Tim had stopped one of Selina’s thefts- because she wasn’t planning on killing anyone, and he was needed back at the Cave, he hadn’t bothered to turn her over to the police. She’d offered to deal with some of the everyday criminals until they’d dealt with the Rogues, which made things easier, but still, they were all stretched thin and exhausted.

“Should we call in Nightwing?” Duke asked. He had a black eye blossoming on the left side of his face, and he was slumped with exhaustion, barely able to take his eyes off the floor.

Tim hunched his shoulders. He didn’t _want_ to deal with Nightwing, not now. It felt- irrationally, he knew- like failure, that they needed to call Damian. That they were even considering it.

“We don’t need him,” Steph said, words a little indistinct through a split, puffy lip. “And I doubt he’d pick up anyway.”

“Yes,” Bruce said finally. “We do need him. Duke, if you call, will he come?”

Duke hesitated. “I… Maybe. It’s worth a try.”

“Good,” Bruce said. “Do it. Then get some sleep. We’ll continue at sunset.”

“Do we have the time for that?” Tim asked quietly. “We can take it in shifts or something.”

“We all need rest,” Bruce said, his tone final. “Burning ourselves out won’t help anything.”

Tim hesitated, then nodded. He didn’t bother heading back up to his room, just headed towards the medbay and collapsed on the nearest cot.

He was asleep instantly, and didn’t dream.

Two days later, they were down to four Rogues still running free, thanks to Damian’s help. Steph and Duke were going after Ivy, Bruce was headed after Two-Face, and Damian was looking for leads on the Joker, who still hadn’t resurfaced.

Tim was sent after Scarecrow. He had a rebreather and vials of the antidote in his belt, plus the element of surprise- Selina had sent them a tip as to Crane’s location, since she didn’t want him on the streets any more than they did.

It wasn’t difficult to get to Scarecrow, nor to land on him with enough force to throw him into the wall before he could react. Crane wasn’t a particularly adept fighter, especially not when it came to hand-to-hand, and he was in cuffs within minutes.

He’d managed to release an airborne fear toxin before Tim had cuffed him, but Tim hadn’t inhaled much before he’d gotten to his rebreather, and he’d administered the antidote as soon as Crane was handed over to the GCPD. It was enough to keep away the hallucinations, at least.

Commissioner Gordon paused to frown at him. “You going to be alright, kid?”

Tim mustered a cheeky grin. “Of course,” he said. “I’m Robin.”

Gordon frowned at him for another long moment, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for your help, Robin.”

Tim watched them go, then reported to the rest of the Bats as if on autopilot. Anxiety was buzzing from his scalp to the soles of his feet, making his hands tremble just slightly, enough that the world felt just a little bit untouchable.

His comm crackled. _“Robin, return to the Cave,”_ Batman ordered. _“Nightwing, report to my position. Two-Face is proving more difficult than anticipated.”_

“Wait a minute,” Tim protested. “You need Nightwing investigating the Joker. That can’t wait. I’m still in fighting condition.”

_“You’ve been exposed to fear toxin, Robin,”_ Batman said, voice even flatter than usual. 

Tim took a deep breath. “The dosage was minimal, and I administered the antidote. While I’m not at a hundred percent, I am capable of backing you up and we _need_ to find the Joker, B. Let me come help you.”

_“This isn’t up for debate,”_ Batman said, voice heavy with finality.

_“Go back to the Cave, Robin,”_ Nightwing said, cutting. _“There’s no use for you out here.”_

Tim stared at the stuttering neon lights of the store across the street, heart pounding against his ribs.

He drove back to the Cave, sat down at the computer.

Alfred came over to stand by him. Tim sighed, rubbed his hands together and told himself they were only shaking because of the toxin.

“Why doesn’t he trust me?” he asked, as much to himself and the silent air as to Alfred.

Alfred sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Master Bruce trusts you very much,” he said. “I believe he simply does not wish to see you hurt.”

Tim stared at the screen as Alfred left, the blue glow stinging his eyes.

With Damian working with Bruce to arrest Two-Face, there was no one tracking the Joker. They still didn’t know what he was planning, and leaving him for longer than they absolutely had to was, potentially, another innocent life lost, another civilian killed.

Someone had to find the Joker, and Nightwing wasn’t going to.

For a moment, Tim thought about the warnings that Bruce had drilled into his head countless times. The Joker was dangerous, more dangerous than any of the other Rogues, more dangerous than anyone else in Gotham. There was a reason that Tim wasn’t allowed to face him alone. Even if he made it out without a scratch, Bruce would be angry- bench him, probably, for ignoring orders. There would be consequences.

Tim was so tired of thinking of consequences.

He put his hands to the keyboard and started to work.

The door slammed shut, the Joker’s laughter lingering in the air, and Tim lay on the cement floor, hurting.

It had been hours since he’d started looking, hours since he’d found a thread of information the rest had overlooked. He’d slipped out before Alfred had returned, left his comms and trackers on the table in a fit of bitterness.

He would be kicking himself for it now, if he had the energy to be angry with himself.

He’d found the Joker, but he’d been stupid enough and angry enough to walk in without thinking, and he’d paid for it, paid with the shattered bones, the blood and bruises, the horrible sinking feeling in his stomach.

He wasn’t sure where he was. He’d been taken from the streets, and he guessed that he’d been unconscious for about an hour before he’d woken up here. It looked like a warehouse, mostly, but with thicker walls, a heavier door.

“Batman!” Tim screamed, feeling it tear at his throat, already raw from pain. “Batman, Batman, B _please!”_

He couldn't hold back a choked sob, tears collecting behind the lenses of his shattered domino mask.

“Batgirl!” he screamed, voice hoarse and cracking. “Signal! _Someone,_ just-”

_Just hear me,_ he didn’t say. He coughed, and then it jarred his broken ribs and even though it hurt he couldn’t stop, not until he tasted blood in his throat and he had no more air in his lungs.

“Nightwing!” he shouted. “Signal, Batgirl- _Batman!”_

His voice echoed in the empty room. No one answered.

“Superboy!” he tried. “Superboy- Kon, _please!”_

He closed his eyes, face itching under the mask where his tears were trapped in his eyes, every part of his body on fire.

He didn’t come.

“Flamebird! Superman!”

Tim tried to take a deep breath, averting his eyes from the white jut of bone sticking out of his leg.

“Superboy!” he screamed again, voice cracking in his desperation. “Kon! Superboy!”

_Please be listening please be listening please be listening._

No one came.

Kon had- He’d _promised._ Said he was listening, and he would come when he called, when he needed him.

Tim coughed and spat blood out of his mouth.

Something beeped, and he forced himself to look over at the red numbers blinking in the corner of his vision.

Five minutes and falling.

It took one and a half to drag himself over to it, and he stopped, slumping over the- the bomb, wired to enough explosives to take out the entire building and everything for a hundred feet outside.

The door was locked. No one was coming.

Tim opened the machinery, his hands shaking, leaving red fingerprints on the metal. It hadn’t even been screwed in, left there like a taunt.

A taunt, not a lifeline, because there was no way Tim could disable this in the three minutes he had remaining.

He tried anyway, blood slicking the wires, vision blurred with pain, every breath agony. He tried because he wanted- he wanted-

He wanted to go _home._ He wanted to hug Steph and he wanted to play video games with Duke and he wanted to have Bruce call him son and he wanted to have Alfred make him tea when he woke up from nightmares, wanted to see Kon and Cassie and Bart and have them make fun of him for being too serious, he wanted to- to drink coffee, see the sun rise, breathe in Gotham’s shitty polluted air, have a body that didn’t hurt. He wanted to grow up. He wanted to _live._

He pulled out three wires that cut into his hands, shaking, sobbing softly, barely able to see through the tears. The timer didn’t stop.

“Kon,” he gasped. “Kon, Kon, Conner, _please.”_

He wasn’t- He wasn’t going to survive this, even if the bomb didn’t go off, even if someone came for him. His body was too broken, just a mess of shattered bone and ruined muscle, too much blood spilled on the concrete floor. He was going to die. He knew that.

He just wanted to see Kon smile one last time.

“Kon,” he whispered.

No one came. The timer beeped softly as his seconds ticked away.

“Dad,” he whimpered. _“Please.”_

No one came.

Tim sobbed quietly, each breath jarring his ribs, more of them broken than not. All he could taste was blood.

The timer ticked down.

When it reached two seconds, Tim closed his eyes.

He wanted to live.

They didn’t find his body until seven hours later.

Joker had taken him out of the city, and was caught an hour later when he returned to the city, dragged back to Arkham as Tim’s body cooled, laughing like all the world was a terrific joke. As Tim’s body cooled, Damian returned to Bludhaven and turned off his phone. Ten minutes after Tim died, the Bats realized he was missing; five hours after, they made a note of the exploded warehouse; six hours after, they arrived, and started to dig through the rubble.

Tim didn’t see them, digging through the ruins until they were sore and aching, and he didn’t see the way Bruce collapsed at the first sight of his broken body. He didn’t hear the way they screamed.

He didn’t feel his father holding him, pressing his lips to his cold forehead.

They stayed there for a long time, the world ripped out from under them. Finally, finally, they stood, dragged each other to their feet.

Bruce carried his son home.

A day later, Superman, Flamebird, and Superboy returned from the off-world mission they had been on as the last ambassadors of Krypton.

Two days later, Damian learned that Tim had been killed.

Six days later, a funeral was held for Timothy Drake-Wayne, a small and intimate gathering. Lois Lane, the only reporter permitted to cover it, released a highly edited account of the proceedings that nonetheless held an undeniable truth: Everyone was hurting.

Four days after he was buried, Tim’s body was stolen from his grave.

Everything was green and everything hurt.

He was drowning, he was drowning, every breath felt as if his bones were shattering, there was water in his lungs, and he had died, he knew he had died so this _had_ to be hell, he was drowning and this agony was never going to end, it hurt so bad he couldn’t remember his own name- everything was flashes of green and white and crackles of thunder, and he couldn’t breathe and he didn’t know where he was and everything _hurt-_

“Detective,” someone was saying nearby. “Breathe, Timothy.”

He choked, and someone was dragging him up above the water, their hands on his back, and he coughed up water until he could breathe again.

The face of Ra’s al Ghul stared down at him, lit green by the- by the-

Something roared in his chest, vicious and hungry, and he lunged, vision blurring as he went for Ra’s’ face, heart thudding against his ribs, a snarl caught in his throat.

Ra’s knocked his feet out from under him, and he fell back into the shallows, breath coming in harsh pants.

“Timothy,” Ra’s said, calmly.

Tim gasped, his blood buzzing with energy, with rage and terror, and rolled to his hands and knees.

He was in the-

He was in the Lazarus Pit. And before that, he had- he had- he’d-

“Breathe,” Ra’s ordered again. He obeyed, gasping.

Ra’s grabbed him by the arms, lifting him out of the Pit, and he stumbled onto the stone floor and crumpled.

He curled in on himself, every part of him aching, and stared at the black stone until the dizzying anger had lessened enough to think.

Ra’s watched him, face impassive, and Tim hated him more than he had ever thought himself capable of.

“You are Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne,” Ra’s began. “Formerly Robin, and the adoptive son of Batman. Ten days ago, you were murdered by the Joker.”

Tim shuddered at the fury that rushed through him at the words and imagined tearing the clown’s throat out with his teeth.

“You have been resurrected in the Lazarus Pit. You are presumed dead by all but myself and the people in this room. Your body has been healed, but it will take some time to regain your bearings.”

Tim forced himself to his feet, wavering, vision tinted green by something more than the poisonous light coming from the water and he was dying, bones shattering into dust and skin peeling from his body and he was being reborn and it _hurt_ and no one had come for him, no one had saved him, it wasn’t _fair_ he had wanted to _live_ and he’d died, he had known he was dead, why hadn’t he _stayed dead_ why had Ra’s brought him _back-_

He staggered at the rush of venomous rage that whited out his vision and left him hearing static, and, for lack of a target, lunged towards Ra’s again.

He managed to break the man’s nose with an echoing _crack_ that sang in his blood, and then he was on the ground, staring at the cavernous ceiling, and all he could hear was his own heartbeat, the one that wasn’t supposed to exist.

Tim lunged to his feet and went for one of the black-garbed guards standing against the walls, burying their own knife in their throat before they could react, and turning on the others who rushed towards them. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t breathe, all he knew was that he hated them, he wanted them dead, and then they were and Tim was standing with blood rolling down his wrists, nearly black in the low light.

Ra’s just watched, doing nothing to stop him.

_“Why?”_ Tim spat, when he’d remembered that his windpipe wasn’t crushed and he could form words.

“Your death was a waste,” Ra’s answered. “You are meant for much greater things than you would have achieved with Batman, even without your untimely demise.”

Tim stared at him, trembling, and Ra’s approached him, holding out his hands.

“You are meant for greatness, Detective,” he said softly, somehow gently. “I can help you reach it, if you allow me.

Tim looked down at his hands. They looked like a lifeline.

He dropped the knife, the metal clattering against the stone, and took them.

Blood dripped off his hands, dark and gleaming.

He couldn’t bring himself to care.

He was led to a room and given a set of robes to change into, and then left alone.

Tim changed out of his waterlogged… suit? His _funeral_ suit- and into the robes on autopilot. He lingered for a moment, staring at the body in the mirror, tracing out the jagged Y on the chest with hands that didn’t feel like his own.

He didn’t even recognize his skin. The scars that decorated it looked wrong.

His face looked almost like his, other than a thin, silvery scar that traced along the right side of his jaw, slightly raised when he touched it. Other than the unnatural whiteness of the front of his hair, the vivid green of his eyes.

His eyes hadn’t been green before.

Had they?

He couldn’t remember, he couldn’t- he couldn’t-

The mirror shattered into a thousand shining pieces with a crash that was near deafening in the small room. Tim blinked at the sound, looked down at his fist, the fresh blood on his knuckles.

He must have broken it, but when he tried to trace the path back to his decision to do so, he couldn’t… remember.

Tim picked shards from the cuts and dropped them in the sink, rinsed off the blood on his hands that was drying sticky and cool, watched as the bottom of the basin was filled with a mess of glass and blood and swirling water.

He left the bathroom and sat down on the bed, staring at the cuts on his knuckles. They looked like they were already starting to heal, and something about that distantly registered as wrong, but Tim couldn’t process it.

He fell back against the bed, staring up at the plain ceiling. The rage was- not gone, no, he thought maybe it would never be gone, but… settled, for the moment. Waiting to strike at the slightest provocation, but far away enough to think.

He was alive.

It felt wrong just to think it. He had died, he had been beaten and broken and blown up and no one survived that. He had died.

Been dead, apparently, for ten days. And now he wasn’t.

Somehow, Tim couldn’t quite believe it. He didn’t feel alive, not really, not when he could still feel the echo of explosions in his body, still feel himself being torn apart and remade.

He wasn’t dead. But he wasn’t quite alive, either.

Tim curled in on himself, listening to the sound of his breathing until he fell asleep.

He was dying again. He was screaming, begging for someone to hear, to just come and save him _please._ He was dying and he couldn’t do anything and it hurt too badly to think, to move, to even breathe and he was _alone_ and then he was drowning and-

Tim woke up screaming, vision gone green, and couldn’t breathe for a long, terrifying moment.

He gasped in a breath eventually, vision clearing, and clutched at the sheets so hard they tore.

Blindly, he stumbled off the bed, curling himself into the narrow gap between the bed and the wall, head in his hands. He shuddered until he could think again, breathe again, exist again.

He counted his breaths carefully, until he could stop hyperventilating, and rested his head against the wall.

“My name is Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne,” he said aloud. “I’m fifteen years old. I died ten days ago. I’ve been resurrected by Ra’s al Ghul and I’m in his compound.”

Eventually, his heart stopped pounding frantically, and he stood, bracing himself against the wall until his mind caught up with the fact that his legs were no longer broken. He walked around the room, tracing a hand across the plain cream-colored walls.

Around fifteen feet by fifteen feet, he noted absently, with sparse but not low-quality furnishings made from pale wood, no windows, a small vent near the top of the room. Big enough to climb into, if he so desired. One door leading into the bathroom, another leading out into the hallway.

Someone knocked lightly on the door, and Tim jumped. They waited, then knocked again.

“Come in,” he called eventually, voice hoarse from screaming.

The door swung open, revealing a guard, dressed in the same plain black clothing as the others Tim had seen. “The Demon’s Head wishes to see you,” they said.

Tim took two steadying breaths, then nodded, and followed them.

Ra’s was waiting in his… throne room, Tim supposed. The guard at his side bowed to him.

“The boy, sir.”

“Ah, Timothy,” Ra’s said, standing, his cloak sweeping behind him. “Walk with me.”

Tim fell in step with him, the stone floor cool against his bare feet. They were quiet for a while, walking through the halls in silence. Tim noted the turns they made, starting a mental map of the compound.

“Have you eaten?” Ra’s asked, though he clearly knew the answer.

“No,” Tim said anyway, and Ra’s gestured to an open door. It was a small dining room, with a table laden with food and two chairs. Ra’s gestured to the guards inside, who bowed and left in silence.

They ate silently, and Tim realized suddenly that he was _hungry._ He hadn’t eaten in…

If he did that math he was going to be sick, so he didn’t.

“How are you feeling, Detective?” Ra’s asked eventually. “I know the experience can be… disorienting.”

Tim stared down at his hands. There were scars on his fingers where they’d been broken. He didn’t remember them, but they looked like they had been there for years.

“I’m… adjusting,” Tim said eventually.

“Good.” Ra’s stood, gesturing for him to follow. “If you need anything, please let a guard know. They are at your disposal.”

“What do you want from me?” Tim asked. It still felt odd to be able to speak, to have his throat not be raw and bloody. To be able to walk, without it hurting badly enough to have to stop and rest after every step.

“Nothing yet,” Ra’s said. “For now, simply for you to heal, and recover.”

“And after?”

Ra’s didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “The Joker still lives, you know.”

Tim suppressed a shiver at the name and nodded, a single dip of his chin.

“Does it not seem wrong to you, that your murderer is still alive? That your family didn’t see fit to get justice for your death?”

“Batman doesn’t kill,” Tim said, and it felt like the words came from something deeper than himself.

“Because he sees your life as less important than that of a mass murderer.”

“Because…” Tim paused. “No. Because if he kills, he loses.”

“Loses, Detective?”

“If Batman kills, then everything he’s done is meaningless.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He kills and there’s no reason for people to be better,” Tim said. “He kills and the corrupt officials can say he’s a threat. He kills and any chance at legitimacy is gone. He can’t kill.”

“But his restraint does not solve a problem such as the Joker,” Ra’s reasoned. “Arkham cannot keep inmates secure for more than a matter of months, and every time they escape, more people are killed. There is no solution for a man such as the Joker within Batman’s moral code.”

“He can’t kill,” Tim repeated. “It’s… The system is what’s broken.”

“So why does he not fix the system?”

“Because he can’t.”

“And yet you still insist that his methods are right.”

Tim felt… unsteady, unbalanced, and he stopped, wrapping his arms around his ribs. Ra’s turned to face him.

“Gotham needs Batman,” Tim said. “It’s- He can’t-”

“Calm, Detective,” Ra’s said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Tim dropped his head against Ra’s’ arm, trying to breathe.

Ra’s counted seconds aloud, and Tim matched his breaths, until he could think straight again.

“What do you want from me?” Tim rasped.

“I want you to get what is right, even if your family will not ensure it,” Ra’s said. “You deserve justice, Detective. You deserve to be avenged.”

“Justice…”

Ra’s tipped Tim’s face up until their eyes met. “You were murdered, Timothy,” he said softly. “Brutally and painfully. You died alone, screaming for someone to save you, and no one came. You were murdered by the same man who has murdered countless others, and no one has even stopped him from continuing to kill, much less make him pay for every life he’s taken.”

Tim closed his eyes, taking shuddery breaths. Only Ra’s’ hand on his face kept him from collapsing, and he leaned into it like a lifeline.

“Your family did not care enough to save you,” Ra’s said, curling a hand around the back of his neck. Tim tried to shake his head, but Ra’s hushed him.

“Your former family did not save you,” he repeated. “And they allow your murderer to continue to kill. How many children have to die, Timothy?”

“He…”

Tim shook, gasping, and Ra’s held him as his vision went green, as anger rose inside him like the tide, inexorable and smothering, and something ignited in his chest.

He clung to Ra’s’ wrists as he shook apart in his hands, the man’s voice a steady, soothing murmur somewhere above him, and he was dying, he had to be, except he was still breathing, and the Joker had to _pay._

Finally- Tim wasn’t sure how much time had passed- he could see through the green haze, see Ra’s looking down at him.

“He’s not going to stop until he’s dead,” Tim said, voice raw.

“No. He’s not.”

“He needs-” Tim shuddered, leaning into Ra’s’ hold. “He needs to die.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“If that is what you wish,” Ra’s said. “If you desire it, I will send an assassin, and the Joker will be dead before the sun rises.”

He paused, eyes distant and dark. “However, Detective- I believe you could do so much more.”

“Why are you doing this,” Tim asked. “Why- why me? I’m nothing… special.”

“On the contrary,” Ra’s said. “You are a very brilliant young man, Timothy. You are destined for so much more than an early grave and an unavenged death.”

Tim took a deep breath, marveling in the fact that he still could.

“Shall I send an assassin?”

“No,” Tim said. Ra’s smiled.

He looked up at the man, the acid swirling in his chest honing itself into something lethal. Green eyes met green.

“When do we start?”

Tim woke up with a scream, just like he had for the past month.

He took steadying breaths, over and over, tracing the autopsy scar on his chest with one hand, until the green faded and he wasn’t being suffocated by the rage in his throat.

Then he stood, heading to the bathroom.

He stared at his face in the mirror- the fourth one he’d had- until it looked like his own again, meeting his reflection’s gaze, and dragged a hand through his hair. It was getting longer, nearly brushing his chin now- something about the Pit had accelerated it, just like it accelerated his healing. He didn’t hate it, even with the shock of white at the front- it made him look less like the boy he’d thought he knew.

Back in the other room, his communicator chirped from the bedside table. He moved back and picked it up.

_“Detective,”_ Ra’s said. _“I presume I didn’t wake you?”_

He always seemed to know when Tim had nightmares, somehow. “No, I was already awake.”

_“Good,”_ Ra’s said. _“Come to me. There’s news from Gotham that I think you’ll wish to see.”_

Tim grabbed his boots and the one knife he’d been permitted- not a staff, never a staff, not any longer- and headed to Ra’s’ throne room.

Ra’s was waiting for him, and he passed Tim a tablet before he’d even made his way fully through the door. “You may want to sit down.”

Tim didn’t, just scanned the news report and tasted blood.

The Joker. Free. And he had shot someone, a fifteen-year-old girl, who was in the hospital with permanent injuries.

Tim flipped to the next page- stills from the hospital security cameras.

Steph.

“Does he know,” Tim said, through the green that rose in his chest, filling his lungs, making it hard to breathe.

“It’s not clear.”

“Was she shot in costume.”

“I haven’t been able to determine that,” Ra’s said. “None of my agents in Gotham saw Batgirl on the streets last night, but they are not omniscient.”

“Is she going to live,” Tim said.

“I believe so.” Ra’s watched his face intently. “But it’s unlikely that she will ever walk again. The bullet permanently damaged her spine.”

Tim took a steadying breath. Then, when that didn’t work, he hurled the tablet across the room.

It shattered on the tile floor with a crash, and with the destruction Tim found that he could see, could think a little clearer through the anger.

“You’ve spent a month telling me to wait,” he said. “To heal, and adjust. I’m done healing. I want to start my training.”

Ra’s didn’t even blink at the damage. “Very well. Your first teacher will arrive tomorrow.”

Tim stared at the destroyed device, then nodded once and left.

Ra’s was giving Tim free reign of the compound, although he was not allowed to keep weapons on his person until he was _stable,_ apparently, other than the single knife he had been allowed, for his own sense of security and in case of emergency. Still, the guards were deferential, and they let him wander as he liked. He hadn’t tried to speak to them, and he was pretty sure that they were instructed not to speak to him, if they were even the same guards from day to day.

Tim made his way to one of the small gardens in the compound, trying to breathe. It was tucked out of the way, and fully enclosed by the high walls, with paths made of stone tile and garden beds growing small trees and flowers. It wasn’t as meticulously maintained as some of the others, which meant the plants were unruly and disorganized, but Tim liked that. 

In the center, there was a deep artificial pond, with cool, clear water. Tim shucked off his boots, setting them beside him, and let his feet trail in the water, leaning back against the cool stone.

Above him, in the square of sky, he could see stars.

They had been a rare sight in Gotham, with the light pollution and smog that choked the city, and even from as far out as Drake Manor where he’d spent most nights as a kid they were faint and difficult to make out. He hadn’t seen anything like the stars here before.

The only noise was the soft rhythm of his breath and the sound of running water from where the pool was being circulated by an unseen motor, making it swirl around his feet. Tim stared at the sky unblinking until his vision blurred, making as little noise as he could, as if he could keep from disturbing the universe.

It was around three in the morning by his best guess, so, depending on where he was- Tim hadn’t cared enough to find out yet- it would still be light in Gotham. His- the Waynes were probably at the hospital, with Steph, if they weren’t tracking the Joker.

He took a long breath. He’d spent this long not thinking about them- he wasn’t going to start now. Instead, he turned his thoughts to his plan.

He’d worked it out in bits and pieces during moments of lucidity, with Ra’s’ help. He didn’t have much in the way of finer details yet- wouldn’t, until he was closer to putting it into play- but he knew his goals.

Kill the Joker. Kill as many of the Rogues who would never reform, and the corrupt politicians and cops that made the broken, useless justice system possible, as he could before the Bats got in his way. 

If he had been the boy from two months ago, he would have been horrified with himself for even considering it. But he wasn’t, and he never would be again, because no one had been willing to get blood on their hands before he was killed.

Tim tasted acid at the back of his throat and sat up abruptly. He gritted his teeth for a long moment, then dragged a hand through the water, droplets flying in a glittering arc to soak the stone path across from him.

_The anger will come,_ Ra’s had told him. _Do not try to suppress it; it cannot be fully contained, and if you attempt not to express it, it will take control of you. It cannot be stopped, only redirected._

Tim scoffed quietly, staring at the damp stone. Before he died, _express your anger_ would have been like a foreign language. One he didn’t know, and had never managed to learn.

It didn’t seem so hard, now.

Tim watched the stars distort and shatter on the ruffled water, never quite stilling, and eventually he stood, grabbing his boots in one hand. He didn’t bother putting them on, just left the garden behind and walked back to his room barefoot.

He stared at the ceiling for a long time, until finally, lying in the dark, he fell asleep.

Tim spent a month and a half with his first teacher, a woman in her fifties whose name he was never told and who had better aim with a gun than anyone he’d ever met. He didn’t know where Ra’s had found her, nor what she did outside of their lessons, and he only ever called her Teacher. She was stern and severe and not free with her praise, unless he was exceptional- which he frequently was, until exceptional became the expectation.

He only had an episode of Pit rage in one of her lessons once, and she had knocked him upside the head and left him to sleep it off in the corner while she made tea.

They parted ways six weeks after they’d met, when she declared to Ra’s that she had no more to teach him, and he spent another week practicing before David Cain arrived.

The man set Tim on edge immediately- he was certainly good at what he did, and had very few standards for the jobs that he would take other than making sure the money was good, but he seemed… cruel. Something in the way he smiled.

“He’s a real piece of work,” Pru said one night, with a scowl.

Sometime over the three months he’d been there, he’d managed to convince the guards to actually talk to him- at least, the three who were assigned to him regularly. Pru, Owens, and Z were surprisingly good company, and an odd set- Pru was younger, around seventeen, while Owens and Z were both in their early twenties; as near as Tim could tell, it was a sort of apprenticeship while she finished her training. They were mismatched in personalities, too- Pru was brash, crude, reckless, where Owens was more relaxed, skilled but humorous. Z was the most serious of them, and the de facto leader.

They’d accepted him into their midst easily- apparently, they were never actually forbidden from talking to him by anything more than custom. It was… nice, speaking to someone other than Ra’s or his teachers.

Who they had strong opinions on, apparently.

“He’s a bastard, right enough,” Owens agreed with Pru. “Good at his job, and he’s not one of the real sadists around here, but everyone knows about that kid of his.”

“Kid?” Tim asked.

“His daughter,” Z said. “One of his experiments. No one knows much about her, but there’s rumors.”

“What kind of rumors?” Tim cleaned his guns idly- he’d finally been allowed weapons outside of lessons again- as the others talked, not looking up.

“She was raised in pretty much complete isolation, apparently,” Owens said, checking the sights on his rifle and frowning at it. “Most likely bet is she was one of his fucked-up plans. Kids raised without words.”

“Girl disappeared about five years back,” Pru said, tipping back in her chair. “No one ever found a body but come on. How many ways are there for an eight-year-old girl who’s part of the deadliest organization on the planet to disappear?”

Tim slotted the pieces of his pistol back together and set it aside, mood souring. “He certainly sounds like a piece of shit.”

“A dangerous piece of shit,” Z said flatly. “I’m surprised he even agreed to train you. He usually only takes jobs that involve assassinations. Any teaching is done strictly on his own terms.”

“Betcha the boss threw a bunch of money at him,” Pru said, chair wobbling on the point between falling backwards and staying steady. “Or threats. Either works.”

“Still,” Owens said, fiddling with the scope. “Rare that Ra’s calls him in for something like this. Only the best for his favorite zombie, huh?”

Tim rolled his eyes as Owens and Pru laughed, rolling the smooth metal of his guns over his hands.

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled. Z stood and clapped him on the shoulder with one warm hand.

“Just try not to antagonize him,” the man advised dryly. “Owens, Pru, Tim has a lesson and we have duties to attend to.”

They grumbled as they left, and Tim prepared himself for David Cain.

Cain was a harsh teacher, largely disinterested in him, and a reprehensible person in a way that made Tim grind his teeth. Still, his training was useful, and he taught Tim well. It was the only reason why he waited until the day before his training was to finish to make his move.

He hadn’t told Z, Owens, and Pru what he was planning, although he thought it was likely that they knew. In any case, they didn’t stop him from popping open the vent in his room and climbing into it when the compound had gone quiet and still for the night, even though he didn’t do it quietly.

Tim had spent three days crawling through the vents in the first month after his resurrection, mapping out the pattern of them. Yesterday, he had confirmed his suspicion on where Cain slept.

He eased the vent cover off in silence and looked down on Cain’s sleeping form. Tim didn’t dare enter the room- Cain was a light sleeper the same as all assassins, and as capable as Tim was, he would have no chance at taking Cain without having surprise on his side. At least, no chance of keeping things quiet.

Carefully, moving as little as possible, Tim reached for a throwing star.

Cain had been surprised at his skill with them, which told Tim more than anything how much he had changed. Expecting a former Robin not to be dangerously skilled with throwing stars was foolish to the point of idiocy, unless he hadn’t _realized_ Tim was a former Robin.

Before, Tim had been good. Now, he was lethal.

The throwing star was silent as it flew, and Tim was moving the moment it buried itself in Cain’s neck, landing with silent feet and jumping to cover Cain’s mouth with his hand.

The man’s eyes flew open, and Tim whispered, “This is for your daughter, asshole.”

In less than a minute, Cain was still.

Tim waited until he was certain the man was dead, then stood, grimacing at the blood on his robes. He removed the throwing knife, wiping most of the blood off on Cain’s sheets, then headed back for the vent, careful not to leave a trail.

Z was waiting in his room when he returned- apparently Tim’s absence had been noticed. He opened his mouth to speak, then froze, staring.

“Hello,” Tim said, dropping back to the floor and putting the vent cover back in place.

“What did you _do?”_ Z demanded, voice barely more than a whisper.

Tim huffed a soft laugh. “I think it’s better for both of us if I don’t answer that question.”

_“Timothy,”_ Z said.

“You’ll most likely hear in the morning anyway.” Tim peeled off his bloodstained tunic, balling it up. “This should probably be burned.”

“We can do that,” Z said automatically, taking it from him and scanning him carefully- for injuries, probably.

“Good,” Tim said. “Then do us both a favor and forget you saw me tonight. Forget I was anywhere but right here.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m unlikely to avoid suspicion but equally unlikely to be punished,” Tim said. “Ra’s hasn’t put this much work into me just to kill me now.”

Z stared at him, then nodded. “I was never here, then.”

“Not at all,” Tim agreed. “Goodnight, Z.”

Z shut the door behind him, and Tim returned to his bed, curling in on himself and gazing at the wall.

He didn’t sleep.

Ra’s called for him early the next morning, when the compound exploded into a riot of whispers. Tim said nothing, and looked at none of the guards, though he could feel them staring.

“Timothy,” Ra’s said. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Ra’s,” Tim replied. “You asked to see me?”

“David Cain is dead. Murdered, actually, in his bed last night.”

“Is he?” Tim asked. “I hadn’t heard.”

Ra’s stared at him for a long moment, then sighed. “He was a very valuable asset to this organization.”

“He was also a bastard,” Tim said. “Whoever killed him probably decided he deserved it.”

Ra’s stood, and gestured for him to walk with him through the corridors.

“I presume you’ve heard about his daughter,” Ra’s said.

“Some. Little that’s concrete.”

“Her name is Cassandra,” Ra’s said.

“Is? I heard she was dead.”

“Unlikely, considering she is currently wearing the mantle of Batgirl.”

Tim stopped walking. “What?”

“Cassandra Cain is Batgirl,” Ra’s repeated. “I suppose Bruce Wayne saw a very skilled child and saw fit to use her as another tool in his crusade, since the role’s creator can no longer fill it.”

“She’s- how old is she.”

“Thirteen,” Ra’s said.

Tim tasted acid. “He decided to put a thirteen year old girl on the streets. Not even six months after I was killed.”

“Indeed,” Ra’s said.

Tim clenched his fists. 

The sheer stupidity, of putting _another child_ in a suit and sending her to fight in his doomed war, of forcing her into the costume that had already led to one child being _crippled-_ the _arrogance_ of it-

Tim only realized he had lost track of the world when he heard Ra’s calling his name, as if from underwater, or from far away. He gasped against the anger, curling his hands into fists so tightly that his palms bled.

His mouth tasted of blood. He’d bitten his lip.

“When is the next teacher arriving,” Tim asked through gritted teeth.

“Actually,” Ra’s said. “I think that perhaps it’s time for you to learn to handle a sword. I will be your next teacher.”

Tim forced himself to straighten.

He wasn’t dead, he reminded himself. He wasn’t dead, because of the man in front of him, and he could force Batman to see.

“Good,” he said, with a savage, bloody smile. Ra’s smiled back.

Ra’s drilled him brutally, harsh and unforgiving, but he was, Tim discovered, a good teacher. They’d decided, after long consideration, that he would fare best with two swords, and that was what he learned.

There was something freeing about it. He had never been taught swordplay before he died- that had always been Damian’s domain, and his predecessor had never seen fit to teach him. Tim had never wanted to learn, before- it had always seemed too deadly, and it needed too fine of control to be anything else. He had the capability of becoming skilled enough, but there were other things that he could put his time into that would be more useful.

Now, Tim had nothing but time. His plan wouldn’t be put into effect for a while yet, and until Ra’s managed to track down the next of his teachers, he had very little to occupy his days- he still hadn’t left the compound, and Z, Owens, and Pru were frequently busy.

Ra’s’ lessons were educational, but exhausting, and he collapsed into bed at the end of the day, entire body trembling with exertion.

“He’s pushing you hard,” Pru observed, feet kicked up on the bed. Owens scoffed.

“No kidding. You couldn’t _pay_ me to be his student directly.”

Z brushed the hair out of Tim’s eyes, and he leaned into the touch, sighing. Obligingly, Z left his hand where it was.

“He’s a good teacher,” Tim said, when he remembered how to speak again.

“Still couldn’t pay me,” Owens said. “I’m fine with staying in the background.”

Z frowned down at Tim. “You need a haircut.”

“Nah,” he said, closing his eyes. “Think I’ll grow it out.”

“Long hair is a sodding bitch to deal with,” Pru said, chair creaking as she leaned back. “Someone tried to make me wear a wig for a mission once.”

“And then you shot him,” Owens said dryly.

“He was asking for it!”

Tim listened to them squabble, too tired to participate where he normally would have joined in on the teasing. Z ran a gentle hand over his hair idly, warm where Tim was almost always freezing.

For a moment, he could pretend he was listening to Steph and Duke arguing about something, could pretend the hand on his hair was Bruce’s. And then he couldn’t, because he was struggling to breathe over the green fury that was choking him. Z’s hand stilled.

“Tim?”

“Go,” he managed through gritted teeth. All three of them were staring at him. “Right now.”

“Tim,” Pru said, uncertainly.

_“Go!”_ His vision went green, and he lunged for one of the people next to him, he couldn’t see everything _hurt_ he just wanted to hurt them, make them bleed, he couldn’t _breathe-_

Someone tackled him, pinning him to the floor, and he struggled, trying to free his hands. They were speaking, but he couldn’t understand them through the roaring in his ears.

He fought them, straining, until he smashed his head against the ground so hard he saw stars and multiple people yelled at once. The green cleared slightly, and he clenched his hands until his nails cut his palms, focusing on the pain. The blinding rage settled in parts, and finally, his breathing settled and he could think again.

Z was pinning him to the floor, his arms held in an iron grip, and he stared at Tim’s face as he steadied himself.

“What the _hell?”_ Pru yelled. “You just tried to fucking _kill me!”_

“I’m sorry,” Tim rasped. “Pit aftereffects. It can get… violent.”

“Can I let you go?” Z asked, studying him. Tim nodded.

He sat up slowly, dizzy, and Z held him carefully as he tried not to faint, the world spinning out from under him.

“Sorry, Pru,” he said again, when the spots cleared from his vision.

She huffed a long breath and pushed herself off the ground, coming to sit next to him. Owens did the same on his other side.

“Kid,” Owens said. “That was…”

“I know,” Tim said. “It’s… usually better lately.”

“Do you know what set it off?” Z asked. Tim shook his head.

“It only has a recognizable trigger part of the time. Otherwise it’s just… random. And I can’t control it or stop it- sometimes redirecting it works, but…”

“Redirecting it?”

“Usually breaking something,” Tim admitted, leaning on Owens’ shoulder. He was _tired._

Z checked him for a concussion, deciding that he would have one hell of a bump on his head but he was fine, and then stood, pulling him off the floor.

“Go to sleep, Tim,” he said, pushing him gently into bed.

He obeyed.

The next day, Z showed him the new addition to his gear. A stack of ceramic tiles, easily shattered.

Tim’s training with Ra’s lasted about two months, until he was declared _passable._ He had never beaten Ra’s, and probably never would, but according to him, Tim could face Damian on equal footing.

He couldn’t hide a bit of vindictive satisfaction at that.

Ra’s called for his presence the day after he’d declared Tim’s training in swordfighting was complete, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that he asked for Z, Owens, and Pru as well.

Ra’s was holding a rolled-up newspaper, which instantly made him stiffen. He held it out wordlessly. Tim took it.

_ROBIN RETURNS TO GOTHAM,_ the headline read. Tim saw green.

“His name is Jason Todd,” Ra’s said, when the silence stretched. “He’s thirteen years old. Apparently, he has no prior training. He’s being trained by Batman, Signal, and Nightwing.”

Tim’s fists clenched reflexively, and there was a sound of tearing paper as the newspaper ripped.

Z moved to stand beside him quietly, holding out a tile, and Tim took it, throwing it to smash against the far wall. It fell in a cascade of red shards, and the green at the edges of his vision receded slightly.

“He never _learns,”_ Tim spat, when he could form words again.

“He’s given your title to another,” Ra’s said, watching him.

Tim laughed harshly. “Robin was never _mine._ I was staying until Damian came back or Bruce found someone better. What he’s _done_ is put another child in danger.”

He glared at the broken tile, shaking.

“One could think he doesn’t care,” Ra’s said mildly. “About you, or any of the other children he’s found, if he’s so willing to throw their lives away.”

“He’s never going to learn,” Tim growled.

“Not unless someone forces him to.”

Tim took a breath, then another, then another.

“Have you found my next teacher?”

“I have,” Ra’s said. “You will be traveling there tomorrow- it’s a few hours by plane. If you wish it, Zeddmore, Owens, and Prudence may accompany you.”

“Yes,” Tim said instantly. “What will I be working on?”

“Poisons,” Ra’s said. “Go. Prepare yourselves for the trip. You will be leaving at sunrise.”

Tim turned, clutching the ruined newspaper in one fist, and stalked back to his room.

“Nice of you to volunteer us,” Owens drawled, as soon as the door shut. Tim blinked, then turned to them, the last of the rage dissipating.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If you don’t want to go-”

Pru scoffed. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Where you go, we go,” Z said, dark eyes warm and intense. “Now and always.”

Tim almost shivered at the truth in his words.

“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, kid,” Owens said, softer. “Of course we’ll follow you there.”

Tim took a long breath, then nodded, sitting down on the bed.

“Thank you,” he said. “Truly. It- I’m glad.”

Owens squeezed his shoulder. “We’d better be packing and saying goodbye.”

They left quietly, and Tim returned his gaze to the newspaper.

It had a blurry picture of the kid on the front, and even through the low quality and blur, it was  
clear he was laughing, entire face turned up in joy.

Maybe Tim should have been angry at the kid. Jason. He wasn’t- he was just a stupid kid, getting in over his head. He saw a chance to be Robin and took it. Any child, especially one who was Gotham born and bred, would do the same.

The ones who were really at fault were the _adults-_ Bruce, most of all, maybe Damian if he actually bothered to be around his family, now that the person who made it so undesirable was gone. Duke and Steph, too, although they were less culpable than Batman.

Tim smoothed out the newspaper, laying the torn edges together to make it readable again, and scanned the text.

He wasn’t homesick. He _wasn’t._ It was a tactically sound decision to try and get as much knowledge on the area he would be working on and the events therein, especially anything that had changed in the six months he’d been gone. That was _all._

He read the entire thing, heart heavy in his chest with some unnameable emotion, and folded it neatly, slipping it into his standard-issue bag before he fell asleep.

Tim spent a month on poisons, and another on explosives, before he saw Ra’s again. The place he’d been brought to was an isolated house tucked away in the mountains- which mountains, he still wasn’t quite certain- and several hours’ hike through the snow from the nearest town, which itself only had a few hundred residents. Pru complained the entire way, and it made for better background noise for the hike than the howling of the wind.

They spent most of their time up at the house, or at least Tim did, working with his teachers- a pair of women in their thirties who had been with the League their whole lives. Once a week, they trekked down to the town to pick up supplies- groceries, mostly, plus a fair amount of less-than-legitimate equipment for his lessons. It was wickedly cold, with wind that drove like knives through their clothing no matter how many layers they wore, and a near-constant light snowfall that obscured visibility. Once, they got trapped in the town by a sudden storm.

“Better to get trapped down here than up at the house,” his poisons teacher told them. “Down here, we can get food, medical supplies, help if we need it. Up there? No one’s coming for you.”

“It’s usually fine,” her counterpart added. “But better to be safe.”

They stayed in the town overnight while the wind roared outside, sleeping in the living room of a man with scars that slashed all the way from his hairline to his lips through one eye, and who didn’t seem surprised when Tim woke up screaming.

Someone arrived early the next morning, just after the storm had stopped, helicopter a black silhouette against the endless white. The town erupted in whispering, all of them watching for the stranger, just as they had done when Tim arrived.

It was Talia al Ghul.

His teachers seemed surprised to see her- she hadn’t told them she was coming. She didn’t seem to care about the cold, or the mutters that followed her path.

She greeted his teachers and their host with familiarity, but not warmth- likely they didn’t know each other well, or only by reputation.

“Lady Talia,” his bomb teacher said- deferential, they certainly weren’t close. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“My father sent me,” she said, lifting her head, proud and regal.

_Lie._ Whatever she was here for, it was her own agenda.

“Timothy,” she said. “Walk with me.”

They ended up at the only restaurant in town, tucked into a remote corner, far from the other diners. Tim sipped at his soup- Talia had paid, since he didn’t actually carry money, having no use for it- and watched her.

“How is your training progressing?” she asked him.

“Quite well,” he replied, as cool and polite as she was. “My teachers say it shouldn’t be long before I’ve learned all that I can.”

He watched her watch him, waiting for her to speak. When she didn’t seem inclined to, he sighed.

“I’m aware you’re not here on behalf of Ra’s,” he said. “What is it you’re looking for, Talia?”

She hummed to herself. “You’re quite direct, I see.”

“Forgive me for wanting to skip the small talk.”

She smiled slightly, a little less dangerous than he was expecting. “Very well. I was wondering what my father’s plans are for you. He has been… less than forthcoming.”

Tim arched one eyebrow. “Why would he not tell you? I was under the impression that you were his right hand- not to mention his heir, with Damian uninterested in taking any part in the organization.”

She grimaced, something resentful in her eyes. “That I may be, but Father is… well, Father. He doesn’t tend to tell _anyone_ everything.”

“Compartmentalization of the operation,” Tim agreed. “Even if _you_ could be inclined to spill secrets to, say, Batman, the League would survive.”

“Of course,” Talia said. “It’s standard procedure. But you don’t seem to be included in standard procedure.”

“How so?”

Talia paused to taste her soup, swirling her spoon in her bowl. “Father has told _no one_ about you,” she said. “Even if he doesn’t tell me what his plans are, he usually tells someone else in the organization. The only people who know you’re alive, and know what and _who_ you are, are your three friends and three teachers. Previously four, before Cain was killed.”

“Is that unusual?”

“I can think of very few things that have that level of secrecy involved.” Talia met his eyes, neutral and calm. “The man who informed me- one of the guards in the compound where you were previously living, who realized who you were- was killed for doing so.”

Tim forced himself not to flinch.

“And why does this pique your curiosity?” he asked.

Talia sighed, staring into the middle distance. “My father is a smart man,” she started. “However, his interest in you is… concerning.”

“You’re doubting his judgement and you want to know what’s going on to form a clearer opinion,” Tim summarized.

“I’m not _doubting his judgement,”_ Talia scoffed, though it seemed more like a token protest than an actual correction. “But in essence, yes.”

Tim stared into his bowl for a moment. “Alright.”

He sighed, tapped his spoon against the edge, brought a hand up to tug at his short ponytail, tried to think of how to start. “Dying… changed my mind about a lot of things,” he said. “My faith in the system, for one. Criminals like the Joker escape from Arkham again and again like clockwork, and the corruption in the justice system means that they’re never going to be properly stopped. I intend to put them down.”

Talia watched him silently, and he continued.

“That would be my main goal, followed by changing the system that allowed the situation to devolve as it has in the first place- if the framework that permitted it doesn’t get torn down and rebuilt, more murderers will keep appearing. The city still _needs_ vigilantes like Batman, but he is not enough on his own.”

“A sound plan,” Talia said neutrally.

He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “I also intend on making Batman see sense, if no one else will. No more child soldiers.”

“No more child soldiers,” she repeated. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“When it’s all over,” Talia said. “What happens to you? Will you go home?”

Tim sighed. “I don’t have a home anymore. I’m not… I’m not the boy they lost anymore. There’s no place for me there.”

“Then what will you do, once you’ve healed your city?”

Tim shrugged. “I haven’t much thought about it. Die, most likely.”

Talia stared at him, unreadable, then nodded once.

“I believe I understand what my father sees in you,” she said finally.

Tim held her gaze for another long moment, then nodded.

He stayed in his seat for a while after she’d left. Finally, he stood, and went to rejoin the others.

He’d passed some kind of test, he was sure. He just didn’t know what that meant.

Ra’s visited the week after he’d finished his training, seemingly uncaring of the cold. He and Tim wandered the streets of the small town, as they had in the corridors of the compound.

“There’s news from Gotham, you know,” Ra’s said casually, after several minutes of silence.

“Oh?”

“Yes,” he said. “About my grandson.”

Tim couldn’t help but bristle. Of all the people from when he was alive, he resented Damian the most- the mention of him was enough to make the rage that was always simmering just below the surface rise.

Ra’s continued, seemingly uncaring of Tim’s anger. “He’s been spending a lot of time in Gotham, since your death- apparently, without you there, he finds it more desirable to be with his family.”

Tim clenched his teeth. “I already knew he hated me. For taking Robin.”

“Apparently it was not about Robin,” Ra’s said. “He seems to like Jason Todd perfectly fine. In fact, Nightwing and Robin have been seen together with surprising frequency. Damian seems to have… taken the boy under his wing, if you will.”

Tim stopped walking.

“What.”

Ra’s lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “He seems to have few qualms about referring to Todd as his younger brother. And according to news from the most recent Wayne gala, the boy seems to adore him. Perhaps Damian simply finds him more worthy.”

Tim was shaking.

“He never even gave me a chance,” he hissed. “He just- acted like I was _nothing._ He- he-”

Tim shuddered, trying to breathe. “What makes him _special,”_ he spat. “Why- after all the time he spent _hating_ me-”

“I have no idea,” Ra’s said simply. “There is nothing at all that makes Jason Todd a superior Robin to you- he is an untrained, foolish child, with no exceptional talent.”

Tim stared at the snow, tinted green in his vision, and his entire body burned even in the cold.

Ra’s placed a hand on Tim’s shoulder, and instinctively he reacted, vision blazing green at the contact.

He blinked, and there was a knife in his hand, the edge bloodied, and Ra’s had a cut along his face.

Tim let out a long breath. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You were not entirely present. It’s understandable.” Ra’s touched the cut, blood smearing on the fingertips of his gloves.

Tim tucked the knife back away. “I’m done here. How long until I can go to my next teacher?”

Ra’s studied him for a long moment, then nodded.

“You’ll be leaving in three days.”

Tim nodded. “Good.”

Tim’s life found a comfortable rhythm. He spent around a month with each teacher, learning all that he could, before moving on to the next. He learned everything Ra’s thought was necessary- guns, sniping, how to withstand torture, how to keep going through the worst exhaustion and pain. How to kill, how to destroy, how to make someone _hurt,_ in ways that Batman never taught him. 

When his training was done, if the teacher was a truly reprehensible person, Tim killed them. It wasn’t always- most of them had blood on their hands, and all of them were morally corrupt in some way or another. He only killed the worst offenders- the hacker who was a pedophile, the hand-to-hand expert who beat his wife, the man who was a master with small blades and also dabbled in human trafficking. Ra’s didn’t say anything about the trail of bodies he left behind, or at least didn’t much care.

Everywhere he went, Z, Owens, and Pru followed. They didn’t seem to have much to do while Tim was in his lessons, but they mostly acted as mercenaries, or worked on completing Pru’s own training, as far as he knew. He asked once, if they would rather return to the League than trail him across the globe. Pru had actually hit him for that.

Tim’s seventeenth birthday- or what would have been his seventeenth birthday, if he hadn’t been dead for ten days- came and went. Owens and Pru insisted on celebrating, as much as they were able to- he ended up with a cupcake, which Pru presented with a mocking bow, and a well-crafted knife that they offered him more seriously. It was… surprisingly nice.

A few months before two years had passed since his death, Tim decided he was ready.

Ra’s didn’t fight him on it, simply nodded. From there, Tim started to prepare.

He started with the mask. His plan didn’t work if he was recognized immediately- he had to retain his anonymity for a while, make the Bats think that he was just another costumed criminal, let them think they knew what he wanted. The long hair and the fact that none of them would be expecting his return from the dead did most of the work for him, but not enough.

The mask he designed covered the lower half of his face, which, when combined with a domino mask, obscured his identity just enough, and it also had sophisticated filters to keep out gases and toxins, and it was wired into his domino mask, allowing him a better HUD than with just the domino. He added body armor, a long coat, tall boots, tucked knives and guns in his coat, lockpicks in a hidden compartment, zip ties in another, strapped his swords to his back.

Then, he started working on his plan. He collected information, set up as much surveillance as he could from halfway across the world, accessed his backdoor into the Batcave’s systems. They’d upgraded their systems- the work of someone referred to as Oracle, a better programmer and hacker than they had when he was alive. Still, he was just a little better- enough to get into their data, but Oracle, whoever they were, was able to keep them out of a fair amount of information.

It was aggravating, but not too much of a problem. He’d just have to reassess when he reached Gotham.

The one unpleasant surprise he received was that Z, Owens, and Pru weren’t coming with him. Apparently, now that Pru had nearly finished her apprenticeship, the three of them were being reassigned.

It was… Tim didn’t know how he felt about it, only that he didn’t like the idea. Since he’d come back to life, he had only constants- Ra’s, and his friends. Now, he would be alone.

He didn’t like being alone. He could work fine alone, had been alone for more years than he wasn’t, but he never learned to like it.

Still, he had no choice. One morning in March, when the snow was still clinging stubbornly to the smog-blackened streets of Gotham as it did to the gardens outside the compound where Tim had returned to for his final few months of preparation, halfway across the world, Tim said his goodbyes and boarded a plane headed for America.

It was time.

Gotham was everything and nothing like he remembered.

The city itself had the same tired, dirty streets, the same graffiti-covered walls, the same scum and ash and grime. The same stores, the same rooftops, the same stubborn foulness.

The city was the same. It was Tim who had changed.

Before, he’d seen the dirt, yes, but he’d also seen home, family, something that could be better if they only gave it a chance. A place full of some bad people, but dozens more people who tried their best to be good for every irredeemable criminal.

Now, Tim was just… tired. The city was shattered, falling apart at the seams, and it had been for decades. Most likely, it wasn’t even worth saving.

Tim had been broken by this city once. If he were smarter, he wouldn’t let it do it a second time.

But there was a burning in his blood, a hook in his guts, dragging him irresistibly back to Gotham, in all its shattered, disgusting glory, and he couldn’t fight it any longer.

He settled in immediately, throwing himself headfirst into his plan. He’d drawn up a list of targets during the plane ride, organized them by priority, decided on the order of them. Now, he just had to collect intel, map out his plan.

Tim was in Gotham for five days before he began.

He began by starting rumors, letting whispers of the _Red Hood_ travel through the streets, letting them work their way back to the Bats. Then, he started killing.

His first priority was politicians and cops. The city couldn’t improve with the people who had the power to do so all willing to take advantage for their own gain, and when democracy was being manipulated to keep them in power, they had to be removed permanently and with force. And Jim Gordon was a good man- the police department was better under his direction than it had been in living memory- but he was one man, and he was fighting his own officers as well as the city, and he wasn’t enough. If the corrupt officers were taken out of the equation, he would replace them with better people, and the department as a whole could finally change.

While he was at it, he would take out some of the more dangerous mob enforcers and immoral, predatory businessmen. They were too dangerous and hurt too many people to be left to continue as they were, and none of them were ever going to change.

He couldn’t go after the Rogues yet- that had to wait until he caught the Bats’ attention. He was going to, once Oracle thought to check the security footage- so, soon, if they were as clever as they seemed- but not yet.

For now, he took out the ones he could, and bided his time.

Gotham could change. _Would_ change. Even if he had to get blood on his hands for it.

Tim knew he had gotten their attention around two weeks after he began. He’d been monitoring the Batcave systems, and there was a new file that hadn’t been there before- _Red Hood,_ made by the same mysterious Oracle as most of the other files. He still hadn’t been able to figure out who they were, without getting closer.

When he knew they were watching, that’s when he made his move.

It took only a few days to track down an Arkham guard around his height, where he lived, and get his hands on the man’s schedule. It took one more to procure the specific toxin he needed to render the man unconscious without causing permanent damage- he wasn’t a bad person, and it was simply bad luck and a slightly shorter than average build that led to him being Tim’s target- and a few days after that, he was knocking the man out and leaving him on the couch to sleep.

He left his gear in his apartment, other than a few knives which he concealed under the Arkham uniform. It was essentially riot gear, in plain black, with a black scarf that covered the bottom half of his face, heavy boots and gloves, and a baton holstered at his hip. He tucked his hair under the round black helmet, checked the man’s identification was in his pocket, and headed over to the prison.

It wasn’t difficult to get into the prison with the identification- Arkham wasn’t well-funded enough for more secure measures. Once inside, he spent a few hours patrolling the prison, waiting.

Guards were normally in teams of two in each of the Arkham sections, but Tim had guaranteed that one of the ones who normally covered that shift- specifically, the one in the hallway that held Cobblepot and Bane- was too sick to come to work, and he knew they hadn’t been able to find a replacement. The remaining guard was less straight-laced, a little less dedicated to his job, and wouldn’t think anything of Tim walking into their cells as long as he acted like he knew what he was doing.

“Messages for Cobblepot and Bane,” Tim said to the guard. 

He nodded and waved him on. “Go on in.”

And just like that, Tim was inside Cobblepot’s cell.

He shut the soundproof door behind him. The man looked up when he did so, frowning, and opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Tim pulled out a knife from beneath his uniform.

He’d chosen it specifically to be recognizable as the style of knife used by League assassins, and he made sure it was visible on the camera as he stalked closer to the Penguin.

Blood sprayed across the wall and floor as the man died, and Tim took a brief moment to be grateful that the Arkham guards wore black, hiding the droplets that splattered on his boots.

He wiped the knife clean of blood on the man’s jumpsuit, hid it beneath his uniform again, and left.

Bane’s cell was in the same section, just a few doors down on the hallway, and Tim started that way, stopping when another guard stepped forwards, putting a hand on his arm.

“Identification?”

Tim dug it out and held it up. The guard looked it over.

“Go on,” she said, and Tim nodded in thanks.

Bane was as easy to kill as Cobblepot, and once he was certain he was dead, he turned, facing the security camera in the corner of the room.

He waved to it, then wiped off the blood that had gotten on his glove, as well as the knife, and left.

There was a blind spot in the cameras outside the asylum’s walls, unseen by any of the security cameras. Tim walked into it, then turned his attention to hacking the cameras, making himself a path of looped footage he could use to leave undetected.

From there, it was a simple matter to get to the rooftops, take off the most conspicuous of the Arkham gear, and head back to his apartment.

The Arkham gear was hidden away in case he needed it in the future- although they’d most likely deactivate the identification when they realized it was stolen- and he shook his hair out of the tight knot it had been in, letting it fall loose.

Soon, the bodies would be found, and the Bats would find out. They would recognize him, recognize the knife, and know he was League. It would scare them, not knowing what he wanted, why the League cared about the Rogues. The next few dominos were falling.

Tim laid down on the secondhand couch and waited.

He got up around two in the morning, not long after the Bats would be finishing their patrols. He grabbed the flash drive that he had prepared earlier, tucking it into a compartment in his glove, and suited up before he drove to Wayne Manor.

When he had digitized most of the files in the Batcave, he’d left himself a backdoor into their systems. At the time, it had been in case of someone else accessing the Batcave and locking them out- he would still be able to get in. Now, he was just… repurposing it, because Oracle hadn’t seemed to notice it.

Tim let himself into the Cave and parked his bike, moving over to the computer. No one would be waking up for a few hours- the influence of a largely nocturnal schedule- so he had plenty of time before he had to get going.

He paused, frowning at the desk. Something about it looked… different than he remembered.

_Oh._

It was specialized for a _wheelchair,_ he realized, and several things clicked at once.

_Steph_ was _Oracle._

It made sense- of course she’d never stay out of the fight for long. Gotham was in her bones, and if there was something she could do she would. Of course she was Oracle, when she couldn’t be Batgirl any longer.

Tim shook the thought away. He didn’t have time to consider it right now.

He moved over to the computer and started working, quickly. It was simple to leave the file he’d prepared on the computer, where Steph would be sure to find it. After that, he started on copying their information on the people who he was planning on targeting next.

He _could_ get that information on his own, of course, but this was so much faster.

There was a faint sound from the top of the stairs, and Tim went tense, turning.

Damian and Jason were crouched there, watching him, and he scowled beneath his mask. He’d been counting on them being _asleep._

Damian went for the store of batarangs built into the wall, and Tim went for his gun. The first he shot out of the air- _thank you, Teacher-_ but he missed the second, and it cut into the back of hand, making him hiss and drop the gun.

He cursed under his breath and turned back to the computer, snatching the flash drive and stuffing it in his pocket. He hadn’t managed to get all of the information he was looking for, but it was better to be interrupted than to leave traces, and he could work around it. He grabbed his second gun with his left hand and fired a few warning shots that hit the wall above their heads, sending chips of stone down and making them both duck.

Damian made it to him in a matter of moments and grabbed a pair of escrima sticks, attacking immediately. Tim’s gun clattered to the ground, and on instinct, he snatched up a bo staff that was propped against the desk.

Using it made his hand burn where the batarang had cut him, but he was still good with it, if a bit rusty. He and Damian exchanged blows with a clatter of metal.

His guard dropped as his right hand gave a flare of pain, and Damian took the opportunity, baton smashing into the side of his face so hard that he saw stars, mask breaking with a _crack._

The lens of his domino mask went dark, and Tim spat out a curse, knocking away the escrima sticks and slamming the end of his staff into Damian’s stomach. He doubled over- _cons of not wearing body armor, asshole-_ and Tim took a step back, ripping off his mask and dropping it on the floor.

Damian went still, staring at him, eyes wide.

“You-”

Tim waited.

“You’re dead,” Damian said finally, slowly getting to his feet.

Tim didn’t have time for this. “Don’t try to follow me.”

He bypassed his regular knife, going for the one coated in a thin layer of a League toxin, and lunged.

Damian tried to defend himself, but Tim was faster, and he left a long cut along his left arm. It wasn’t very deep, but it was enough to poison him.

Jason was creeping forwards, so Tim grabbed a batarang from the desk and threw it. Even with his injured hand, he could throw it with more precision than most people- nearly anyone, actually, better than anyone not in the house- and it came close enough to the boy’s face for the rush of air to tousle his hair. He squeaked in surprise, covering his head, and Tim turned, snatching the broken mask from the ground and sprinting for his bike.

The yell of _“Damian!”_ that followed him out told him he wouldn’t be pursued, but he kept going anyway, until he could disappear into the rush of traffic. He looped through the city before he finally returned to his apartment.

He sank to the floor as soon as the door shut, shaking as the adrenaline started to fade, and cradled his hand to his chest.

So they knew who he was. Or they would, soon, once they ran his DNA through their database- they had his blood from the batarang, after all. And they would likely also know he was alive, resurrected, and not a clone or time traveller or from an alternate dimension, because there was a test that would detect the remnants of Lazarus waters in his blood. He’d designed it himself.

He hadn’t been prepared to see anyone, or to have his identity revealed. It hadn’t been part of the plan- he’d been meaning to break into Arkham a few more times, kill the targets he’d gotten from the Batcomputer, get them more on edge and drive them crazy from not knowing, before he got to this point.

If they knew, then he would have to move the timeline up. That was fine. Everything was in place- he would just have to cut out some of the steps in between.

Tim took a long breath and stood. He had to bandage his hand, see if his mask could be repaired or get one of the spares, take a shower, get some sleep. Then, he would get to work.

Everything was about to change.

Tim waited until the following night, around four in the morning, to get moving. The drive to Arkham was quiet and calm, the entire city still for once, and Tim took a deep breath as the gates rose before him.

This was it.

He stashed his bike nearby, in case he had to make a quick exit- more likely than not, if he was being honest- and headed to the blind spot in the cameras that he’d scouted out weeks ago, scaling the fence in a few easy movements.

Getting to Killer Croc’s cell was easy, and he left the guards behind him, motionless- unconscious, not dead, they were just doing their jobs.

He didn’t bother with a knife this time- it would take too much time with Croc, and it was mostly theater for the Bats behind the cameras anyway. Plus, he wasn’t trying to be quiet.

Tim was moving as soon as Croc’s body dropped, a bullet in his brain, and he was halfway down the hall before the guards arrived. He holstered his gun and pulled out his swords.

He didn’t cause any permanent damage, no matter how difficult it was with the green roaring behind his vision, and left them groaning on the floor instead.

It took him longer than he would have liked to break free of the mass of guards, and his ribs ached from a hit he’d taken from a well-placed baton. He sheathed his swords and headed for the Joker.

The clown looked up when the door opened, mouth stretching wide in the same gruesome smile that haunted Tim whenever he closed his eyes, and he started to laugh, high and sharp.

“The _Red Hood!”_ he cried, eyes manic with delight. “You know, I’ve heard a lot about you, Hoodie. Takes a lot of guts, to steal a name from _me.”_

“You weren’t using it,” Tim said. He felt distant, floaty, his hands gone cold, like he had stepped out of his own body.

Joker laughed at that. “Oh, I _like_ you, Hoodie.”

“Feeling’s not mutual,” Tim said, and kicked him in the chest, sending him crashing to the floor.

He didn’t seem to care, just laughed again, cackling and scratchy and Tim wished he would _stop,_ wished it didn’t claw at his brain like knives.

“So why _did_ you come to visit me?” Joker purred, low and dangerous.

Tim slid the lenses in the domino mask back so he could look the Joker in the eye, pulling his gun from his coat and aiming at his forehead at the same time.

“We have a history,” Tim snarled, heart pounding against his ribs. “You thought you could _break_ me, a couple years ago. Figured if you beat me half to death and left me in a warehouse with a bomb you would finally win. _I’m not broken.”_

Joker’s eyes widened. “The second little birdie.”

“Yes.”

Laughter filled the air, echoing. “Oh, this _is_ good,” he wheezed. “Batman’s pride and joy, a _murderer._ How does it feel, _Robin?_ Disappointing Daddy?”

“I’m not much in the habit of caring what Batman thinks,” Tim hissed. “I’m not that kid anymore.”

Joker laughed, deafening and hysterical, and there was the sound of footsteps outside the door as Nightwing came running, katana in hand. Tim drew his second gun and aimed it at Damian’s head.

“Nightwing,” he said. “I was wondering if they would send you.”

“Red Hood,” Damian said, watching them both warily as he stepped forwards, footsteps light. “Stand down.”

Tim laughed, harsh and short. “Really?”

The Joker dragged himself upright, still laughing, but it trailed off as he ran out of breath. _“Two_ little birds! Ah, don’t you _love_ family reunions?”

_We’re not family,_ Tim wanted to say, but he couldn’t breathe through the rage that made a home in his chest, constricted his throat and made his guts burn.

“Shut up,” he spat instead. The tip of his gun was trembling minutely, and he couldn’t still it.

“Red Hood,” Damian started again, voice far too calm for the situation. “Murder isn’t-”

The green _roared,_ and Tim interrupted, “I will shoot you in the head,” and he meant it.

“I can’t let you kill him.”

Tim was shaking, so furious he was nauseous with it, so angry he thought that maybe it would be all that he ever felt, for the rest of his life, and everything- _everything,_ from the time he was nine years old and thought Robin was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen, _everything_ was leading up to this.

Tim turned to stare at Damian, and he took a step back.

He knew he was terrifying. Owens had pointed it out to him once, when the Pit had risen inside of him, that his eyes had glowed unearthly green, that his very presence seemed to pull the life from a room, like he wasn’t alive, like he was just a body with a heartbeat. He _knew_ he was wrong, broken, just an empty shell, everything that had made him Tim Drake-Wayne ripped out and replaced with a fathomless rage.

“And what, let him kill another child?” he demanded, watching Damian’s face, the blank white eyes of his mask. “Your new Robin? Let him kill however many _thousands_ of people-”

“It isn’t our-” Damian started, and Tim bared his teeth behind the mask.

_“It isn’t our place to be judge, jury, and executioner,”_ he hissed, Batman’s voice echoing in his head like a brand, and he could _never_ escape it. _“We have to give the system a chance to work._ I believed that once.”

He _had,_ he had believed it, had known it better than his own name, had _felt_ it all the way down to his bones, but those bones had been shattered and built again and somewhere along the way that conviction had left him.

“Maybe it was before I was murdered,” he said, turning back to look at the Joker.

The clown laughed, and something in Tim, some shattered remnant of a little boy who was Gotham in the hands that cradled his camera and the dirt on his shoes, who had seen what happened to those the Joker came across, who had felt himself die, something in him wanted to _hide._

“Shoot me,” the Joker said. “It’s a wonderful joke, isn’t it? Batman’s perfect little birdie, fallen so far? Kill me, and clip your _own_ wings this time.”

Tim hadn’t been perfect for a very long time, and he was long resigned to blood on his hands.

“Okay,” he said, and pulled the trigger, once, twice, four times, blood splattering across the padded white wall, and the Joker’s corpse thudded to the ground.

Tim wiped a spot of blood from his mask, heart pounding.

Dead. He was _dead._ He wasn’t coming back.

“Shall we take this outside?” he heard himself say from somewhere far away, and his body turned away from the lifeless form of his murderer.

“I should arrest you right now,” Damian said, staring at the Joker.

“Do you think there’s any cell in the world that can hold me?” Tim asked lightly.

He didn’t wait for an answer, holstering his gun and going for his knife, vicious and fast. He caught Damian across the right side of his face, scoring a scratch across his cheek, under his eye, and blood welled up, dripping down his face.

Tim brushed past him and started to run, ignoring the yelling of the other prisoners, the guards stopping to stare, and made his way to the roof.

It was easy to leap from the roof to where his bike was waiting, water pouring down his face, soaking his hair and his clothes, and he felt cold from more than just the rain.

His bike roared as it started to move, and he raced through the streets, water arcing behind him, heartbeat roaring in his ears.

He knew he hadn’t bought much time, so he ditched the bike in an alley and sprinted two blocks until he found a building with a functional fire escape, leaping up to grab it with both hands. It was slick with water, but he pulled himself up and got to the rooftop.

The sound of Damian’s bike pulling in behind him was barely audible over the sound of the rain, and he started to run, leaping between buildings, breath coming harsh and fast.

He rolled as he landed on the next roof, uncaring of the water that soaked his coat and hair, and came to a sudden stop when a black mass dropped from the sky.

Bruce stared down at him, and Tim froze, body humming with tension. Damian stopped behind him.

“Tim,” Bruce said, and there was some emotion hanging heavy in his voice but Tim had long since unlearned how to read it, and he was _burning_ inside with anger and terror and grief and some grain of traitorous love and he pulled out his gun, aiming it straight at the golden Bat symbol that glinted faintly in the rain.

Duke dropped to the roof next to him, eyes flicking over the situation, but he said nothing.

“Get out of my way, Batman,” Tim said, and was surprised by how little it shook.

“Tim,” Bruce repeated, and Tim flipped the safety off with an audible _click._

There was the sound of someone new arriving- two someones, if Tim heard right- and Damian made a choked noise.

“Robin,” he whispered. “Go home.”

“No,” Jason said stubbornly, and Tim turned, keeping his gun fixed on Bruce’s chest.

“The new kid,” he said, cocking his head. There was venom running through his veins, and as little as he blamed Jason, as much as it was the fault of the man facing his gun, it _burned_ to look at him, see the evidence of Bruce’s arrogance and foolishness. “Where’d they find you, then?”

“Crime Alley,” Jason said, tilting his chin up defiantly. Tim had guessed, from the accent.

“Really,” he said idly, studying him. The uniform hadn’t changed much- a little thicker, less exposed skin, a bit more armor.

He couldn’t swallow the bitterness when he spoke, and didn’t much want to anyway. “I’m surprised _big brother_ even let you near that uniform.”

_After he spent three years trying to keep me out of it._

He saw Damian go stiff out of the corner of his eye and pivoted, mouth filled with the phantom taste of blood. “Don’t act like you ever accepted me,” he said, spitting the words like they burned, like by saying them he could stop himself from burning. He couldn’t. The fire in his throat never really went away.

“Don’t act like you ever gave a shit about me,” he said, voice shaking with rage, almost unnoticeably.

Damian just stared at him, expression unreadable and flat behind his mask. Tim scoffed under his breath.

At least he wasn’t pretending.

“I’m surprised _any_ of you let him near that uniform,” he said, directing it towards Bruce and Duke. “Considering the last kid _died_ in it.”

None of them said anything.

“Ah, but of course,” Tim continued, the words spilling out like they didn’t belong to him. “You have to- how did you phrase it, _Damian?_ ‘Find another undeserving child to put in a uniform and call a soldier?’”

Damian made a soft noise in his throat, and Tim stared at him, something bitter and ugly in his throat, behind his teeth.

Damian didn’t say anything. Didn’t make excuses, didn’t apologize, didn’t change his expression, flat and unreadable and uncaring.

“You killed the Joker,” Bruce said, and for a moment Tim couldn’t breathe through the anger.

“Are you going to tell me it was wrong?” he demanded. “If you had _done something,_ maybe you wouldn’t have to use _children_ as your cannon fodder.”

None of them said anything. They just watched him, silent and cold.

“Fine,” he said bitterly. “You have your way; I have mine.”

He took the gun from Bruce’s chest and aimed it at Jason instead. The kid screamed and dropped, clutching his leg.

Damian dove to catch him, face flickering to concern for the first time, and Tim hated him so much he couldn’t breathe, and for a moment he hated Jason too.

It left him an escape path, and he leaped across to the other roof, rolling to his feet as soon as he landed. Bruce tried to follow him, so he shot the pavement at his feet until he stopped.

“Consider this a lesson,” he said, low and lethal and furious. “Robin should _never_ have existed. No more child soldiers, Bruce.”

He jumped down to the fire escape on the side of the building and then to the ground lightly, running as soon as he hit the ground. He didn’t _think_ they would follow him, since they’d be preoccupied looking after Jason, but he wove through the maze of dingy alleyways anyway until he worked back to his bike, then took the long way back to his apartment.

He hung his waterlogged coat by the door and took off his boots, squeezing some of the water out of his ponytail onto the mat by the door, and sighed.

He hadn’t _meant_ to hurt Jason, or at least it hadn’t been part of the plan. He would have preferred if Robin and Batgirl stayed home, actually, but they hadn’t, and now he had been forced to shoot a child.

Tim sighed again. He needed a shower. Then, he’d work on hacking enough of the security cameras in the city that Steph couldn’t track him, and after that, he’d get to working on the next part of his plan.

The Joker was _dead._

Really dead, finally dead, after two years of nightmares and pain. After a _decade_ of murder and torment and terror. He was dead and the city was _safe._

It was justice that his uncountable victims never got. That Tim never got.

Somehow it still didn’t make him feel okay.

He slept for a few hours, waking up to the sun filtering through his window and his own screaming, and took a brief moment to eat and brush his hair before he got moving.

He’d had intel on Sionis for a while, waiting for the opportune moment, and maybe this wasn’t exactly that but Tim was too jittery to wait.

There was a time limit now, of how long he could evade the Bats. It wouldn’t be forever before they finally caught up to him, and until then he _had_ to make the city as safe as he could.

Tim’s coat was still damp, and he grimaced at it, putting it on anyway. Then, he went to find Sionis.

The man was dangerously predictable- he always drove from his house in the mornings, and even though it was always a different route and a different destination, it was still the same _time,_ and there was only a handful of guards and the driver. The house was impenetrable, the car was impenetrable, but the time in between was not.

So Tim was waiting.

When Sionis stepped out of his house, Tim shot each of his guards, cuffed the man, put up with his grumbling and threats all the way to Wayne Tower and hit him until he shut up.

He uncuffed him and forced him to climb the precise path Batman had created up the building when it was first renovated. They reached the top only a few minutes later, and Tim cuffed him again, tied him up with rope- mostly for the theatrics- and forced him to his knees.

Tim fired a few shots into the ground, the _bang_ echoing through the air, and then he settled in to wait.

It didn’t take long before a news helicopter started to circle, and Tim grinned behind the mask. _Finally._

He waved at the camera cheerfully, then turned, pressing his gun to Black Mask’s forehead.

His body crumpled to the pavement, face stuck in a permanent snarl of disbelief and rage, and Tim tucked the gun away again.

He turned to face the helicopter again and started to sign, _Tell N-I-G-H-T-W-I-N-G I’m waiting,_ spelling out the name.

Then, he moved over to watch the streets.

Less than ten minutes later, Tim saw the distinctive shape of a motorcycle racing through the streets, and Damian skidded to a stop at the base of the tower.

Just for fun, he shot at the pavement nearby.

Damian scaled the tower, and Tim aimed a gun at his head the moment he was standing on the roof.

“Hey, Nightwing,” he said, with a lightness he didn’t feel. “Long time no see.”

“It’s been less than twenty-four hours,” Damian retorted, and Tim couldn’t hold back a scoff.

“Don’t be pedantic,” he said, barely restraining himself from spitting the words like knives.

Damian didn’t respond, gaze settling on the corpse behind him, and Tim gritted his teeth before he made himself relax, keeping his voice light and airy when he said, “Going to _bring me in,_ Nightwing?”

“Why did you call me here?”

“I thought it was time for us to have a chat,” Tim said, finally dropping the light facade, his blood starting to hum. “Between brothers.”

_You’re not my brother,_ he almost expected Damian to say, but he just looked up at the helicopter, still circling. “Is this really the place?”

“Probably not,” Tim admitted. He turned, and threw himself from the building, wind dragging his hair and coat behind him.

He launched his grapple after a few seconds of freefall and landed on one of the shorter roofs, grapple winding again as he started to run. Damian landed behind him- good, he was following.

Tim led them both on a merry chase through the city, taking a long, looping route through different districts and tossing himself across alleyways without any care for the air below him. The helicopter stopped following them after a while, but Tim kept going, testing Damian, listening to see if he stumbled, if he hit the roofs hard or if he landed easily, seeing how much he could take.

Finally he rolled to a stop and turned, drawing his swords. Damian stopped too, and pulled out his katana.

“So,” he said flatly. “A chat.”

“We can multitask,” Tim said, and moved to strike. He went easy, his attacks slow, barely even trying, and Damian frowned.

“You got those from the League,” he said, eyes flicking to the twin swords, and the name was tinged with disgust. “They would have taught you better than that.”

“They did,” Tim agreed, watching for Damian’s next attack. “Ra’s was most insistent that I learn to use a sword properly.”

Damian’s lip curled in disdain. “So it was Grandfather who brought you back.”

Tim ignored it, just attacked again, a little faster, a little harder, still not at his full potential.

“He tried to manipulate me,” he said, and it burned on his tongue. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, hadn’t wanted to say it out loud, but- Ra’s wanted _something_ from him. He wasn’t certain what it was yet, maybe just the power of having Tim under his thumb, but he wanted something.

“Tried to get me to be angry with Jason, for stealing my title,” he continued. “With Bruce, for not avenging me.”

Damian didn’t say anything, just watched him, warily, face giving nothing away.

“What Ra’s didn’t realize was that I _understand_ those things. Any child would want to be Robin. I was never intending on being the last, any more than I was the first. I was just expecting that Batman would _learn,_ after he got one son killed. Or maybe Stephanie would realize, after the Joker _broke_ her. No more child soldiers.”

“It wasn’t Father’s choice,” Damian said, katana held out threateningly, and Tim couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Don’t try to convince me that _you_ made him Robin. After all- what was it you said? Robin should _stay buried.”_

Tim tasted bitterness on the back of his teeth, like acid eating away at his insides, and he wanted to _hurt him,_ he wanted to rip Damian up inside until he hurt just like Tim was hurting.

“No one gave it to him,” Damian said, looking Tim in the eye. “He took it.”

_Oh, so we’re throwing my words back at me, are we?_

“The last child who took it you called a liar and a thief,” he spat, hoping that the venom covered the pain. “This one you call little brother.”

“I was wrong.”

Tim froze, not certain he’d heard right. Then he dismissed it and attacked. He managed to land a blow on Damian’s hip, although it only damaged the armor.

Damian returned the attack, vicious for a few seconds, then stepped back, keeping his blade between himself and Tim. “I was wrong,” he said again. “I treated you horribly, and you deserved so much better. I should have been your brother. I should- I should have been a lot of things, but I wasn’t, and I can’t go back. If I could fix it I would do so. Without hesitation.”

Tim stared at him, the world seeming to rock away under his feet.

He’d thought… he hadn’t thought Damian would change his _mind._ Would _admit,_ what he’d done to Tim, how terrible he’d been.

It was too little too late.

“You can’t,” Tim said, flat and cold.

Damian stopped, let his sword dip down to point at the floor, shoulders folding in on himself. “I know. I know. Some things don’t get second chances.”

Tim couldn’t breathe through the anger, at Damian looking _pained,_ when Tim was the one who had to _die,_ when he had never even _cared,_ when all he had ever done was hate him. He tore the mask off with one hand, letting it tumble to the ground, and attacked, giving up the pretense of being untrained.

Damian didn’t try to defend himself, even when Tim ended up with the point of his sword against his throat, pricking his fragile skin.

“I don’t want your guilt,” Tim said, letting the words hang in the air, watching the way Damian flinched. “I don’t want your remorse. I do not care if you wish you could take it back, because you can’t. You are not my brother and you are not forgiven.”

It was too little, far, far too _late._ Damian didn’t get to make up for everything he’d done now. The boy who wanted nothing more than Damian’s acceptance was _gone,_ dead and buried, and something else had come back.

“I know, Timothy,” Damian said, breathing carefully against the sword at his throat, and Tim saw green at the name, at the lack of _Drake, Drake, Drake,_ like it had always been, the _unworthiness_ thrown back in his face.

“Don’t call me that,” he spat. “Don’t act like I matter to you now.”

“You do,” Damian said, softly, almost _gently._ The blank white lenses of his mask stared into Tim’s eyes and did not flinch. “You always will.”

Tim wasn’t _stupid._ He was a murderer and a criminal and he went against _everything_ the Bats stood for. No matter how much they wanted to preach about _family,_ no matter how much Damian wanted to act like he’d had a change of heart, no matter what they wanted to pretend, he was a threat and a _predator_ and if they were given half a chance they would toss Tim in a cell and leave him there to rot and die.

Tim stepped back. Let the sword drop away from Damian’s throat.

Damian stood, watching him, and touched a hand to his neck.

“Going to bring me in, Nightwing?” Tim repeated.

“I should.” Tim watched him warily. He didn’t try to attack. “You shot Robin. You’ve killed, by our count, twenty-two people. You have blood on your hands, Hood.”

_You missed six,_ Tim thought about saying, but instead he just replied, “So do you.”

He’d heard stories, in the League, all the ones Batman had avoided talking about. The things Damian had done, the people he had killed, the lives he’d ruined. Damian was just as much a killer as he was.

“And it was the same people who put it there.” Damian’s voice was colored with disgust, disapproval.

“So it was,” Tim agreed. Damian _didn’t_ get to judge him, not now, not ever.

“You know who they are.” Damian’s gloves creaked with the force of his fist clenched around the hilt of his katana. “You know what they do. They’re not good people.”

Tim smiled. It felt wrong, artificial, like somewhere between the last dying traces of hope and the first gasp of air in his lungs he’d forgotten how. “You’re forgetting, Damian. Neither am I. I kill people, and destroy things, and I shot a child to save my own skin. I have no illusions about my morality.”

Tim turned towards the city and put his swords away, his body tense with anticipation, listening for the faintest hint of an oncoming attack.

“That’s the other thing Ra’s got wrong,” Tim said. Damian came to stand beside him, looking out over the cracked, grime-coated streets full of flawed, selfish people. “He thought I should be angry that the Joker still lived. That no one bothered to avenge me, or even make sure that something like what happened to Steph _couldn’t_ happen. But Gotham needs Batman. He can’t kill. If he does, then everything he’s done, every example he’s set, everything he’s built, is meaningless. He’s just another criminal.”

For all that Ra’s was brilliant, for all he could predict Batman’s movements and his choices and each step he would take, he had never really _understood_ him.

Tim stared out over the city, the city that had taken so much from him, had broken him more thoroughly than the Joker could ever have hoped to, taken and taken every bit of life he had until he was willing to throw away every last breath in his lungs for Batman. And damn it all, Tim still _believed_ in the Bat, in the legacy, the symbol, no matter how much he sometimes wished he didn’t.

He was just no longer naive enough to think he could solve everything without getting blood on his hands.

“Gotham needs Batman. But Gotham needs a monster, too.”

If it was Batman standing beside him, and if Tim was anything more than a threat to the things he’d so carefully built, he would say something about saving Tim’s soul, about how once he killed, he could never come back.

Tim’s soul wasn’t stained. It was six feet underground, and the body walking around with his face was hollow.

“This city is safer than it was two months ago,” he said, as much to himself as to Damian. “The Joker will never kill another person or ruin another life. Neither will any of the others. The corrupt politicians I’ve killed can’t hurt anyone, and if people like Bruce Wayne do what is necessary, they will be replaced by good people.”

Damian finally spoke. “Do you expect me to agree with you?”

“Of course not,” Tim said, picking his mask up off the ground and fitting it back over his face. “You are your father’s son, down to your bones. I don’t even expect you to get out of my way.”

He pulled a gun, too close and too fast for Damian to even hope of dodging.

“I’ll have to make you,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Damian fell like his strings were cut, clutching the hole in his gut, blood spilling out onto the concrete, and Tim stood at his side, looking down at his face, twisted in pain.

He’d shot carefully enough that it was unlikely to kill him, as long as Batman and Signal didn’t take their time. Still, it would keep him off the streets for a few weeks.

“The system is broken,” he said, looking down at Damian’s agonized face. “So I’m burning it down.”

He stepped up to the edge of the roof and shot his grapple, leaping into the open air, and headed back to his apartment.

He shut the door behind him, took off his coat and mask, toed off his boots, tossed his gloves on the counter. Dragging a hand through his hair, he sighed.

Damian’s little speech was… odd. He couldn’t expect Tim to _believe_ it, surely, no matter how good an actor he was. It just didn’t make sense.

He put it out of his mind. He had work to do.

Tim continued taking out some of his smaller targets for a few weeks, methodically working his way through Gotham’s politicians, either killing or clearing each one, until he finally ended with the mayor. Damian had tried to stop him from killing the man, though he at least didn’t try to convince Tim to follow the way of the Bats, and failed.

He watched with interest as Bruce found another child- a little boy, this time, no more than eight years old, formerly of C.C. Haly’s traveling circus- and kept an eye out on the streets, but no tiny Robin appeared. Jason had seemingly kept the role, and the boy was off the streets, for now.

Around a month after the boy had been adopted, he received a message from Ra’s al Ghul, demanding his presence. He didn’t bother responding.

He was… disillusioned, with Ra’s. His head had cleared enough, after a while away from the League, to realize he surely wasn’t acting without an ulterior motive- he had no issues with the Joker, and he didn’t care about Gotham, or want to see it saved. He had deliberately turned Tim into a weapon, wound him up like a bomb and sent him to Gotham to explode.

Tim wasn’t interested in being manipulated again. Not when he still had work to do.

The next message was enough to change his mind. _Return or Zeddmore Washington dies._

He returned to himself thirty minutes after reading it to find he had thrown a glass of water against the wall, soaking the paint and the carpet and littering the ground with glass shards.

He picked it up, uncaring of the edges that cut into his palm, and started to plan.

Ra’s was waiting for him, and Tim allowed himself to be beckoned to walk at his side, just like before.

“Why did you ask for me to come back?”

Ra’s hummed lightly. “I wished to check on you.”

“You could have come to Gotham for that. I was _busy,_ Ra’s.”

“As am I,” Ra’s replied. “I _am_ the head of this organization, and I cannot travel across the world on a whim.”

“You managed just fine while I was training,” Tim said flatly. “I’m here now, just like you asked. Let me see Z and Owens and Pru.”

“In time.”

“No.” Tim stopped walking, turning to face him. “Let me see them, now, so I can verify that Z is safe, like you promised.”

A flash of irritation crossed Ra’s face, but he gestured to one of the guards nearby, who hurried away.

“How have your endeavors been progressing?” he asked, and even though he couldn’t put his finger about it something- maybe his tone- made Tim uneasy.

“Quite well,” he said. “I had to make some adjustments, but most of my major goals have been accomplished.”

“I hear you killed the Joker.”

“Yes,” Tim said simply.

“You finally have justice,” Ra’s said. “The justice that your family refused to give you.”

Tim didn’t say anything.

He hadn’t felt just, after he killed the Joker. He hadn’t felt happy, or even pleased. Just hollow.

He’d never really stopped feeling hollow.

And as little as he believed Damian’s speech- the grief in his voice, and the way Bruce’s had shook…

“What do you want from me, Ra’s?” Tim asked.

“Do you have a plan, for when it’s over?” Ra’s asked. “Once you’ve got your vengeance, taught Batman that Todd should not be Robin. What are you planning on doing then?”

Tim frowned at the tile floors.

“It’s not about vengeance,” he said finally. “It’s about making the city better.”

Ra’s hummed. “But you agree that Batman’s methodology is not enough.”

_You don’t care about Gotham,_ Tim thought, and said, “On its own, no.”

“Then you plan to make him see otherwise, yes?”

Tim shook his head, feeling unbalanced, as if the floor had been tilted thirty degrees. “I don’t need him to agree with me.”

“Would it not bring you satisfaction? To hurt him as you have been hurt? Or to punish Damian, for mistreating you?”

_No,_ he thought with sudden clarity. _It wouldn’t._

“Tim!” someone shouted, and suddenly Pru was lifting him up as she spun, bringing his feet off the floor. “Tim, you son of a bitch, you’re back!”

“Yeah,” he said, distractedly patting her shoulder. “I’m back.”

She looked suddenly abashed, dropping to the floor, kneeling over towards Ra’s. “Forgive me, Master, for my enthusiasm.”

Tim curled his hands into fists in his pockets. Deference wasn’t a good look on her.

“It’s been a long flight,” Tim said to Ra’s. “I’d like to sleep, and we can discuss this further tomorrow.”

Ra’s looked at him, and there was a look in his eyes that Tim didn’t like. He thought it might be hunger.

“Very well,” he said, waving them off. “Rest tonight, Detective.”

Tim nudged Pru to her feet, and didn’t bother nodding to Ra’s before they left.

His room was the same as he’d left it, and Z and Owens were waiting.

“How’s Gotham? How are you? Why are you back?” Pru asked as soon as the door shut. Tim laughed, and it pulled strangely at his face.

He hadn’t laughed and meant it in months.

“Let the man breathe, Pru,” Owens said with a chuckle, pulling Tim into a crushing hug and ruffling his hair.

“Gotham’s improving, I’m fine, and because Ra’s asked for me,” Tim said over Z’s shoulder. Z hugged him for a moment, then drew back, holding him by the shoulders, studying him.

“You look tired,” Z observed.

“I am tired,” Tim admitted. “How have you been?”

“I’m a full assassin now,” Pru said proudly. “As much as either of these idiots.”

She deflated after a moment. “Everyone else is boring, though. There’s nothing interesting now that you’ve left.”

“Sorry for damning you to a life of monotony,” Tim said dryly, and she punched him in the shoulder.

“I’m just glad you’re _back._ Are you staying?”

Tim sighed. “I still have work to do in Gotham. Ra’s didn’t send for me at a convenient time.”

Owens ruffled his hair. “Well, it’s good to see you, kid, for as long as you’re here.”

Tim smiled again, and this time it fell flat and wooden. “Yeah.”

Z cupped the back of his neck in one warm hand for a moment, then let go. “We’ll let you sleep tonight.”

Tim nodded, and they left, door shutting behind them.

He took off his boots and coat, slowly and carefully, keeping his breaths calm and even. His thoughts were swirling, almost too fast to process, and all Tim knew was that he _didn’t_ want to be here, even if seeing his friends took a weight off his chest.

He laid on his back and stared at the ceiling for a while.

Ra’s was- Something about him, about the way he looked at Tim, made him nervous. Made him want to _run,_ until he could get away from the hungry look in his eyes. He hadn’t seen it, before. It had been there, it had always been there, but he was too… angry, to see it. Too vulnerable.

He saw it now.

Ra’s didn’t care about him. He didn’t want to help him, and he did not bring Tim back to life out of kindness. He had a goal, and Tim was simply a tool, for whatever game he was playing.

He’d thought maybe it was the power, the feeling of having Tim under his thumb, knowing he had taken one of Batman’s children out from under him, broken him to his will, made him belong to _Ra’s._

But it didn’t make sense. If he’d wanted simply to _have_ Tim, why put the effort into training him? Why let him go back to Gotham, away from his influence?

No. It was something else.

He wasn’t certain what, but he didn’t have to know _what_ to know he didn’t want any part of it.

If he had a choice. He’d already spent months- _years-_ as Ra’s’ tool, as an empty shell who used to be someone, who used to have hope and a family and a future. He had _died,_ and some part of him hadn’t come back. Couldn’t.

He wasn’t a person, not really. He was a weapon to be broken and used and broken again.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath.

Even if he was nothing he could still do _something_ useful. He had killed the Joker, killed the most dangerous people in the city, given Batman and Nightwing and all the rest a way to make the city safe again, if they made sure the new police officers and new politicians were genuinely good. Now, he could do something here.

He could keep Z and Owens and Pru safe. Because they were _good,_ better than Ra’s, better than this whole mess of killers and backstabbers and flawed, evil people. Better than Tim. He could do that, and ruin Ra’s and free himself again.

His life could be his own again.

Tim stared up at the ceiling until morning came.

Tim felt like he was underwater as he got up, put on his boots, walked with Ra’s around the compound. He went through the interaction like a performance, let Ra’s hear what he wanted to and tried not to focus on the predatory look in his unnaturally-green eyes.

In the evening, he ended up in his room, Pru and Owens and Z settling into the space like they had always belonged there. Tim sighed and sat on the floor, letting his head drop against the edge of the bed next to where Owens was sitting.

“What’s eating at you, kid?” Owens asked, nudging Tim forwards until he could reach his hair. Tim felt him start to braid it, deft and quick.

“Where did you learn this?” Tim asked, and regretted it when Owens’ hands stilled.

“My little sister,” he said eventually, and started to work. “She and I joined the League at the same time. She… didn’t last.”

“Oh,” Tim said uselessly. Then, “I’m sorry.”

Owens sighed, heavy and sad. “So am I. But that’s in the past. Right now, I have two little siblings and I would do anything for either of you.”

Tim swallowed.

“What’s going on, Tim?” he asked, and the gentleness in his voice made him crumple.

He had checked the room for bugs last night. No one was listening, and his friends would not betray him.

He breathed.

“I’m going to kill Ra’s al Ghul,” he said. “And either destroy the League or make it into something better.”

The room went silent.

“You’re… going to kill Ra’s,” Z said slowly. “Won’t he just be revived again?”

“Not if I make sure that there’s no body,” Tim said. “I’m going to blow him up.”

The three of them stared at him, and Tim stared back.

“Why?” Pru asked.

Tim got to his feet, too anxious to sit still, half-finished braid swinging behind him. “Because I don’t like being used. I don’t like it when someone tries to make me _theirs,_ treats me like a weapon or a- a tool. I want- I need my life to be _mine_ again. I need to feel free again.”

He stopped, clenched and unclenched his hands, tried to ignore the way his skin burned with their eyes on him. “And the League is- it has _potential_ but not in his hands. It _can_ be better, with the right leader.”

They were staring at him, faces etched in disbelief, shock, a little fear. Tim waited.

“Okay,” Z said finally. “When do we start?”

It took nearly a month to finish their preparations- mostly, smuggling in the explosives they were going to use to take down the entire compound- and during that time Tim found his way into the compound’s security systems.

It was, he was a little surprised to learn, Ra’s actual head of operations. Clearly he thought that Tim was more pliable than he was, or maybe he just hadn’t realized that being back in Gotham would bring him back to himself.

They made their move when most of the guards were gone, late at night when the moon was no more than a thin sliver in the sky and the compound was silent. They had gradually accumulated the amount of explosives they would need to bring the compound to the ground and kill anyone inside- now, they just needed to place them. They focused on the throne room, then the Pit, and worked their way outwards.

Then, Tim tucked the detonator in his pocket and waited for morning, for Ra’s to call for him like normal.

He had no illusions about his ability to defeat Ra’s in a fair fight, or even hope to survive- five years of training was no competition against centuries of it, and if he and Ra’s faced off he would be dead in minutes. He also had no illusions about his ability to keep Ra’s in the throne room for long enough to blow the building without killing himself in the process, and Tim had no interest in dying in an explosion twice.

So he didn’t bother with honor. Instead, he walked into the throne room and shot Ra’s in the head.

The room erupted.

Tim was moving before the body hit the ground, face transfixed in a permanent expression of shock, running for the door and shooting as many of the guards as he could before they started to react. It took longer than it probably should have, for elite assassins, but he supposed it probably _was_ surprising to see Ra’s killed by his own pet project.

He made it into the vents before he heard the sound of more guards arriving, moving through the vents as quickly and quietly as he could. It took a few minutes, and a couple of moments of freezing when someone passed, before he dropped into the grass outside.

Z, Owens, and Pru were waiting outside, where they had taken his things and theirs, and gotten well out of the range of the explosion. Tim sprinted to meet them, then turned, clicking the detonator.

The explosion _roared,_ orange tongues of flame reaching towards the sky, and the shockwave hit like a punch to the chest, the heat warming their faces even from so far away, and Tim was choking.

He couldn’t breathe, and for a moment all his bones were breaking again, and his breath caught in his throat, terror rising in his chest like the ocean.

But there was a hand on the back of his neck, an anchor against the tide, gentle and firm all at once, and Tim was still alive. He was alive.

The world went quiet again, smoke clearing slowly to reveal the ruins, still burning quietly.

“That was… easier than I thought it would be,” Owens observed. “He’s dead?”

“Unless he can survive a bullet through the brain,” Tim said, and started towards the wreckage.

They’d put enough explosives in to bring the whole building down, killing most of the guards when it exploded, but it wouldn’t be enough to destroy Ra’s’ body as thoroughly as they needed. Tim picked his way through the rubble, dodging around the still-burning fires, until he was standing over the destroyed throne room, and the body.

“He doesn’t look so strong,” Pru said derisively, nudging at one limp arm with her boot.

“No. No, he doesn’t.” Tim turned away. “Get started on that. I’ll check the Pit.”

The chamber that held the Lazarus pit had collapsed in on itself, leaving a hole in the ground where the cave had been, and Tim climbed down the unstable slope until he could see the water.

The Pit had gone a dull, murky green, without the unearthly light that normally emanated from it, and Tim didn’t feel the same irresistible tug in his chest, Lazarus waters calling to Lazarus rage. Chunks of the roof had fallen into the pool, along with ash and dirt and chips of rock, turning it a muddy greyish-brown in places. It was ruined, unusable. Whatever made it so powerful was gone.

Of course, there were dozens more across the world, any one of them with the power to bring Ra’s al Ghul back to life. Assuming, of course, there was a body, or anything more than ashes. Which there wouldn’t be.

Tim headed back to where Z, Owens, and Pru were working- gathering wood, mostly from the building itself. Somewhat spitefully, they’d ripped as much wood as they could out of the throne.

They burned the body until it was nothing more than fine grey dust, gathered up the ashes, and split up to scatter the remains as far apart as they could in a few hours’ hike. Then, they returned to the wreckage.

For a few moments, they just stood there, the four of them, watching as the last of the fires died.

Suddenly, Pru cheered, flipping off the dull sky with both hands, and the rest of them joined in, even Z, yelling and clapping, their voices echoing over the empty mountains.

Eventually they quieted, and Z asked, “What now?”

Tim kicked a piece of stone lightly. “Now, we figure out who’s scrabbling for power and throw our weight behind the best of them, or we abandon the whole mess altogether. It depends on who goes for it.”

“Who do you think will try?” Owens asked. “And who would you support?”

Tim considered it. “Talia,” he decided finally. “With her father gone, she can turn the League into something good.”

“And after?”

Tim sighed, looked out towards the horizon. “I’ll go back to Gotham. Try to make things better there.”

“You have no interest in being part of the League?” Z asked, neutrally.

He shook his head. “I’ll always end up in Gotham, in the end.”

They went quiet, for a long moment.

Then, Pru grinned, fire in her eyes. “Then let’s go find Talia.”

Talia al Ghul ended up finding them.

They had been working their way through the country, heading west, staying away from the bigger cities. A few times, they had been accosted by rogue League members who recognized them and realized what they had done; most of the time, however, they were left alone, and avoided when they stopped in small towns.

A few weeks after they killed Ra’s, Talia came to find them, just as she had more than a year ago.

“Talia,” Tim greeted her when she approached them. “Long time no see.”

“Timothy,” she said. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Some,” he said, with a flippant shrug. “I hope we haven’t caused you too much trouble?”

For a moment, he thought she might strangle him with her bare hands. She apparently thought better of it, taking a deep breath.

“You’ve caused plenty,” she said tightly. “Do you have an explanation?”

Tim looked her in the eye, knew they were reflecting the Pit as he spoke. “I don’t like being manipulated, Talia.”

“You killed my father.”

Tim sighed, then glanced at his friends, considering. Then he said, “Walk with me.”

She looked for a moment as if she was going to protest, then nodded, letting him take the lead.

“Did you love him?” Tim asked.

“He was my father.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Talia sighed, soft and tired, her breath like the wind whistling through skyscrapers. “I believe so, yes,” she said finally. “He was not… a good man, and I do not think he always loved me, and I- I did not always _like_ him. But he was my father and I did love him.”

Tim hummed thoughtfully. “I understand, Talia, at least to a certain extent.”

“Do you?” she asked, tone full of venom. He wasn’t offended.

“I’ve loved people who did not love me my entire life,” he said, offering her a humorless smile. “Even when I would rather not. My own parents, even. They weren’t Ra’s, but they weren’t saints.”

Talia didn’t look at him, staring off to the horizon.

“You’ve been subjected to his manipulations for far longer than I have,” Tim said. “He didn’t treat you well. He didn’t love you. He loved what you could do for him. And now he’s dead.”

She turned to look at him. He looked back.

“Who will you become now?” he asked mildly. “You’re free of expectations, of consequences, of being used for someone else’s gain. What do you want to become now?”

She smiled, just the slightest bit. “I will be the Demon’s Head,” she declared, lifting her chin, proud and regal, as she had always been, but this time her eyes looked alive.

Tim grinned. “As you should be. As you deserve.”

“And what will you do?” she asked. “I could use you.”

Tim chuckled. “I’m not part of the League, Talia. I’ll end up in Gotham eventually.”

“Even after it killed you?” she asked mildly.

He smiled, and this time it was humorless and flat. “I’m the same as the Bats, at the end of the day. Once that city gets its teeth in you it never really lets go.”

Talia conceded that with a nod. “Your assistance would still be useful to me. I am not the undisputed heir as I should be- others are attempting to take over. My sister Nyssa, Ubu, and Slade Wilson are the main ones.”

Tim sighed. “I can help you for a while, but I can’t be away from Gotham forever. It’s already been too long.”

She nodded. “Very well. Shall we begin?”

Tim watched her for another long moment. The Demon’s Head, or she would be, who held her head like it bore a crown.

“Let’s get to work,” he said.

Talia brought them to one of the League bases which she had claimed for her own, and from there they began to work. Tim was no general, and he was not made for war- his training was for the streets and the Cave, for being one man against a dozen, not for warfields and armies, but neither was this a normal war.

Many of Ra’s former forces agreed on Talia as the rightful heir to his power- however, many of them didn’t care about right, and many didn’t think she was worthy of it. Some of them could be convinced, some threatened, and some would have to be killed. It was a regrettable waste of resources, but a necessary evil.

Talia put Z, Owens, and Pru to use almost immediately; they became some of the highest-ranking members of her organization, which confirmed Tim’s suspicions. They would be staying with the League, when he left.

It ached less, this time, now that he was no longer so… vulnerable and afraid. He would miss them, but Tim could survive on his own.

He was not given an official place in the organization. Partially because he would be leaving soon, and Talia didn’t want to go to the trouble of finding a place for him only to lose him within months; partially to avoid him being killed for murdering Ra’s. There was a fair amount of Talia’s soldiers who thought he should be put to death for what he’d done.

But none of them could deny that he was useful, and so alive he stayed.

By the time Tim had been there for a month, Ubu had ceded control of his forces, and chosen to support Nyssa Raatko- however, his forces split, with the majority following him, but some joined Talia and others Deathstroke. Some joined the small but stubborn faction insisting that they should find Damian Wayne and call him to take his grandfather’s place, even though he had broken all ties with the League nearly ten years ago.

That was also when a group of Deathstroke’s followers located Talia’s fortress and attacked.

They were better than the guards who Ra’s had kept- either Wilson had higher standards or he’d been working on them- and by the time Tim had defeated all the ones he’d come across, he was panting, trembling minutely with exertion.

“Go find the rest,” Talia said. She was as ruffled as he was, the sword in her hand dripping blood onto the stone floors. “I will take care of things here and coordinate the cleanup.”

“If I find Wilson I’ll give him your regards,” Tim said with a quick grin, and started to run.

He worked his way methodically through the silent hallways, stepping around black-clad corpses- most of them Deathstroke’s men, though there had been losses from their troops- and checked each floor thoroughly, killing enemies where he found them and locating their own injured.

Slade Wilson was waiting on the top floor, dressed in his familiar orange and black, sword in hand.

“Red Hood,” he greeted cheerfully. “Last time I saw you, you were still wearing the cape.”

“I’ve outgrown that now,” Tim said, flat. “Talia sends her regards.”

“She didn’t see fit to come herself?” Wilson asked. “Is she afraid of me?”

“You really think she’d waste her time on you?”

Wilson’s mask warped as he sneered, settling into a fighting stance. “Well, Drake. Let’s see if you’ve grown since we fought last.”

“Let’s,” Tim said, and dodged the first strike.

Wilson was _good-_ there was a reason he was one of the most feared and sought after mercenaries in the entire world. Tim wasn’t arrogant enough to say he was _better,_ but after his training with the League, he was just skilled enough to match him.

Deathstroke was stronger than he was, taller and bulkier, and there was no contest of pure strength that Tim would have a chance of winning, not against him. But Tim had spent three years as a teenager fighting criminals on the streets of Gotham, small and scrawny for his age, and most of them had been spent keeping up with two metahumans with superspeed.

Wilson was fast, but Tim was faster.

It wasn’t enough to keep him from being harmed- he was collecting an array of bruises, and a cut on his bicep that was making him struggle to keep his guard up with his right arm- but it was enough to survive, and he gave as many wounds as he received. 

They fought for long minutes, the only sound the gasp of breath and grunts of exertion, the clashing of metal on metal, the soft hisses of pain. No one had come to interrupt yet, although they would- Tim wasn’t the only one searching the building, just the best of them. 

“Why do you follow her?” Wilson asked as he switched hands, pain audible in his voice- Tim had cut deep into the wrist of his sword hand. “You owe Talia al Ghul nothing. In fact, she owes you more than you owe her.”

Tim panted for a single second, then straightened. “Because I don’t like you.”

Wilson laughed. “You’ve changed, Drake.”

“Dying does that to you.”

“What’s disgraced you so much?” Deathstroke asked, bringing their swords together with a high, ringing note. “A child of Batman, a murderer, working for the League of Assassins. What broke you?”

Tim’s left sword flicked out, high and quick, cutting through Wilson’s mask. “You, the Joker, even Ra’s- none of you get it, do you? I’m not broken, Wilson. I just have a new perspective.”

“Maybe dying twice will do the trick, then,” the mercenary growled, and he dragged his sword across Tim’s stomach.

It burned, hot and agonizing, and Tim choked on a scream, but he gritted his teeth and blinked away the blur of tears. It wasn’t the worst pain he’d ever felt.

And he was _not_ going to die a second time to Slade fucking Wilson.

Deathstroke was watching him, a smile visible through his broken mask, and he sheathed his sword again, clearly certain he had won.

There were people at the door, some he didn’t recognize. One he did. Pru.

Tim straightened, slowly, painfully.

“It won’t,” he hissed.

His sword dug into the side of Wilson’s neck, faster than even he could react. He wasn’t dead, but he would be in a matter of moments, even with the medical attention he wouldn’t be getting.

Wilson’s eyes went wide with shock and rage, and then there was a boot slamming against his stomach, over the gash, and Tim _screamed_ as he was shoved backwards, into the window, tipping over the edge in a shower of broken glass.

Above all the noise, he could hear one voice.

_“Tim Drake-Wayne, don’t you dare die!”_

He was falling, falling, and they were too far above the ground, and his grappling gun was on his belt but he was too numb to reach for it. He stared up at the pinpricks of light in the sky, even as they blurred in his vision.

He was about to die.

Somehow, he didn’t mind it all that much.

There was a _crack_ and rush of air that he remembered like a hazy dream, and arms closing around him, and impossibly blue eyes looking down at him.

The world went dark, and he closed his eyes.

Tim woke to the sound of shouting, and the fuzzy, distant feeling of painkillers. His mouth tasted like cotton, and his body felt disconnected from himself.

He opened his eyes.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Pru said, leaning into his line of vision.

“What’s going on?”

She grimaced, and didn’t respond.

Tim tried to listen to the shouting, but it was distant, impossible to make out. He thought he heard Talia’s voice, and- and _Z’s?_ Z didn’t shout. Ever.

The others, he thought he should recognize, felt familiar to him in a way that ached all the way down to his bones, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“Pru,” he said, sitting up and touching the bandage over his stomach. It felt better than he had expected- maybe not enough to fight or run without tearing the stitches, but enough to stand, or walk.

“Some people wanted to see you,” she said, stiffly. “Lady Talia and Z didn’t want to let them.”

“Who?”

Pru looked like she’d swallowed a lemon. Before she could speak, the sound of voices grew louder.

“-he’s our friend, alright, so just _let us through!”_

The door banged open, hard enough to leave a dent in the wall, and the figure standing in the doorway made his breath catch in his chest.

_Kon._

He looked the same as he had two years ago, physically. A little more tired, without the near-permanent smile. He wasn’t wearing his suit, or the jacket he had loved so much, just a plain black shirt with the Superboy symbol.

He stepped into the room, shrugging off the hand on his arm roughly, and two others followed him. Cassie and Bart. Looking… older and tired, just like Kon.

All three of them, staring at him, with some foreign emotion in their eyes.

There was a time when he would have been able to know their thoughts with only a glance, when their hearts were a part of his own, when he would have known them and smiled and not had to feel his heart pounding against his ribs, when he would have known exactly what had left them so tired, but that part of him had stayed six feet underground and suddenly the people standing in front of him were strangers.

“Tim,” Kon breathed.

Tim felt abruptly thrown from his body, the floor yanked from under his feet, watching himself through water.

Kon took a hesitant step towards him, and then there was the crackle-snap of lightning and Bart was burying his head in Tim’s shoulder and throwing his arms around his shoulders and talking a million miles a minute, and once he would have understood it but he was long since out of practice at picking apart the words.

Mechanically, he pried Bart’s hands from his arms.

“Tim,” Cassie said softly, taking a few slow steps towards him, boots quiet on the stone. “You… they told us you were alive, but…”

Kon’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, and he looked at Pru. “Leave.”

“No,” she said, not flinching as he stared at her, something that would have been a glare if it weren’t for the unshed tears in his eyes.

_“Leave.”_

“I. Said. No,” Pru said, cold and defiant, and did not budge.

He took two steps towards her, and Tim finally found his voice.

“Pru stays,” he rasped.

Kon stopped, turned towards him. “What- happened to you? I mean- they told us you died, we went to your funeral-”

“I did,” he said. He couldn’t… move. Couldn’t take more than shallow, quiet breaths.

“Jon told me you were alive,” Kon said quietly. “Months ago. But I couldn’t… find you. Your heartbeat’s changed.”

There was another sizzle of lightning, and then Bart’s hands were cupping his face, brown eyes staring at his own, and for once he was silent.

Pru clicked the safety off her pistol and aimed it at Bart’s head, cold and steely. “Get your hands off him.”

“Listen, you-” Kon started.

“Get your hands _off him,”_ she repeated. Bart took three steps back, hands dropping to his sides, clenching and unclenching nearly too fast to see.

“Tim,” Cassie said quietly. “Are you okay?”

He couldn’t hold back a choked laugh, at that.

“Tim,” Bart said. “What happened to you? Why didn’t you come home?”

_Jon Kent didn’t tell them everything,_ he thought, a little hysterically.

He took a single deep breath.

“I’m not him anymore,” he said, and the words weren’t his own, they didn’t feel like his.

“What?” Bart stared at him. “Tim, you’re still you, we know it’s you. It’s still- you’re still you. You’re still our friend.”

He wasn’t, he wasn’t the boy they loved anymore. That boy was murdered and the parts that mattered were still lying in his grave, he hadn’t come back because death wasn’t something he could just get over. He had died and something else came back, something without a heart and with blood on his hands.

He was a shell, an empty, useless body, only half alive, with so much death on his hands it would make them sick to know of it. He wasn’t the person they knew, he was a nothing, there was an empty void where his heart should be. He was nothing.

He _died._ And he didn’t get to come back from that.

“I’m not,” he said, when the silence stretched too long.

“Tim.” Cassie held out her hand. “Please come home.”

He didn’t take it.

“I’m not the person you’re looking for.”

“You are,” Kon insisted, staring at him with such unfaltering hope on his face, such unshakable faith, that it made Tim’s heart break. “You always were, Tim, please.”

“You don’t get it,” Tim said. His entire body was numb. “Your friend died and I- I came back. And I’m not the same person anymore. I’m a murderer and an assassin and a monster. I am _not the person you’re looking for.”_

“I don’t believe that,” Kon said. “You’re still you.”

“You couldn’t find me because my heartbeat was wrong,” Tim said, noting distantly that there was a tremor in his hands. “What makes you think the same heart came back?”

“Tim,” Kon said, his voice bordering on pleading.

Tim took a breath that burned on the exhale and ignored the feeling of his heart crumbling to dust.

“Superboy,” he said, flat and cold. “Leave. You’re not welcome in the League.”

“Tim-”

“Leave before you are made to,” Tim said, sharp, as if it didn’t cut him just as much.

Cassie tugged at his arm, pulling him back towards the door.

“We love you,” Kon said quietly. “I hope you always know that. Even if you’re not ready to hear it.”

They left.

Tim put his head in his hands.

“You alright?” Pru asked, watching his face.

_No,_ Tim thought about saying. _No, I haven’t been alright for two years_ or _no, I hate what I’ve become_ or _no, I just broke my best friend’s heart._

“I’m fine,” Tim rasped.

Z and Talia entered, wearing identical irritated expressions.

“Tim,” Z said, reaching over to cup his face with a hand briefly. “I’m sorry we couldn’t keep them away.”

“Rest assured they will not be returning,” Talia added, scanning him carefully. “They should not have been here in the first place.”

“I’m fine,” he said again to her inspection, and stood carefully. “I think… I think it’s time to go back.”

“To Gotham?” Pru asked. “Why now?”

“Wilson is dead,” Tim said. “By my best guess, the majority of his forces will be coming here, rather than to Raatko. You can handle this easily without me, and I- I need to go back. I never meant to stay away this long anyway.”

Talia met his gaze for a long moment.

“Very well,” she said. “If you so desire, I can have a plane for you within the hour.”

Tim nodded, picking up his swords from where they’d been set carefully nearby. “Thank you.”

“Do be careful,” she said. “Your injuries won’t be healed for around two weeks.”

“I will.”

It didn’t take long to collect his things, nor to say a brief goodbye to most of the people he knew. As promised, in less than an hour, he was standing in front of a plane, and the only people waiting were Talia, Z, Owens, and Pru.

He clasped Talia’s hand for a brief moment, then turned to his friends. Pru and Owens hugged him, tight though careful with his injuries, and Z held his face with both hands and kissed his forehead lightly.

“Take care of yourself,” he said.

“As long as you do the same.”

He took one more moment to look at them. Just one look more.

Then he boarded the plane, and didn’t look back.

Tim spent a couple of weeks catching up on what he’d missed in Gotham, and letting his injuries heal. Then, once he was healed, he made a plan.

It wasn’t his best, as far as plans went- his final day with the League had shaken something loose inside him, made him anxious and flighty, eager to act. It wasn’t like him- he preferred planning, taking his time, making sure he knew every aspect and variable before he made a decision. Spontaneity was as good as a death sentence, and though adaptability was vital more information only made things safer and helped him stay one step ahead. But Tim couldn’t sit still.

So he took a few hours to secure the interior of his apartment, another two to get his hands on the sedative he would need, one more to measure it out into the specific dosages he might need, and then he took to the streets, looking for an opportunity.

He found Damian and the new kid- Dick- walking down the streets of one of the safer districts. The boy had Damian’s hand in both of his, jumping every third step, and Damian was smiling down at him, visible even from the distance.

It made Tim jealous, for a few heartbeats- for once, not the kind that crept up his throat in a wave of green and stole his breath- and then he shook it off, because he was eighteen years old and jealous of an eight-year-old kid?

They disappeared into a shop, an ice cream store, by the sign, and emerged a few minutes later, settling onto a bench outside.

Tim waited until they had finished eating- no sense in making them waste food, that was just rude- before he fired the first shot.

Damian looked around, expression sharpening with wariness, but didn’t move fast enough to avoid the dart, which he plucked from his skin and stared at for a moment.

Then, he leaned over, wrapping a hand around Dick’s tiny wrist. Pressing the panic button concealed in the watch he wore. _Good._

As soon as he did so, he swapped darts to the one he’d measured for someone roughly Dick’s weight- a little lower than he guessed, he didn’t need him asleep for very long and he had no interest in killing the boy if he was wrong- and shot. Richard slumped against his shoulder, and Tim started to move immediately. He only had a few minutes.

No one looked twice at him hauling Damian away, since no matter how nice the district this was still Gotham. He kept his eyes on the kid as he scrambled up to the nearest roof and disabled Damian’s trackers methodically, crushing them for now- he’d dispose of them more thoroughly later.

Satisfied that he’d gotten them all, he swapped out the darts again and trained his sights on Dick again. He couldn’t take him, but he wasn’t enough of a monster to leave him unattended in Gotham.

It was only around two minutes later before a car rolled up- not the Batmobile- and someone jumped out of the passenger seat. Duke.

He picked up Dick, checked his pulse, then frowned, looking around for Damian. He cast his gaze across the rooftops, missing Tim, and said something to the driver of the car.

Duke looked around one more time, then sat back in the car, keeping the boy in his lap. The door closed, the car started to move, and as soon as it disappeared Tim was moving.

He stole the first expensive car he saw- its owner would probably be able to afford another one, better than someone who owned one of the battered cars beside it- and drove back to his apartment, stopping by the harbor to throw away Damian’s trackers. Then, he left the unconscious vigilante on his couch, took the batarangs he had stored in his pockets, and settled in to wait.

Damian woke up around half an hour later, opening his eyes slowly. He didn’t seem inclined to speak or move, so Tim said, “I know you’re awake.”

Damian sat up, watching him. “Where’s Richard?”

“At the Manor, I presume,” Tim said, turning a page in the book he was holding. “I watched him until B got there, by the way. You’re welcome.”

Damian seemed to relax minutely at that. “They’ll be looking for me then.”

“You couldn’t find me before, what makes you think that they could find me now?” Tim didn’t look up from his book, although he wasn’t really reading it. “I threw your trackers in the harbor, if you thought Steph would find you that way.”

Damian looked around, eyes settling on the swords on the wall for a moment before he dismissed it, looking for a weapon, most likely. “Don’t bother,” Tim said, eyeing him over the top of his book. “I vigilante-proofed it before I grabbed you.”

As if he would be stupid enough to leave an escape route.

“What do you want?” Damian demanded.

“Unfriendly. Have I done something to offend you?”

The Pit rage had faded, but he had to admit it was funny to see Damian grinding his teeth. “Only kidnapped me, leaving an eight-year-old vulnerable,” he bit out.

“I already told you I kept an eye on him,” Tim said, honestly a little offended. “He was perfectly safe. If anyone had made a move I would have taken care of them?”

“By murdering them in front of him?” Damian asked, eyes flashing with anger. “That boy’s been through enough.”

Tim thought against saying he hadn’t been planning on killing them, then decided against it. “He’ll go through more if he’s Robin.”

Damian jerked at that, furious. “Do you really think we would put an _eight year old_ on the streets?”

“You were ten,” he pointed out.

“And I had also been training with the League of Assassins for my entire life. Richard is a child, and he is _not_ Robin. If Jason sees fit to leave the position, and Richard is older and _trained,_ then he may consider it.”

Tim decided to let it go, and set the book aside with a hum, lacing his fingers together. “I talked to Ra’s recently.”

“Did you,” Damian said, flat.

“I did. I may have been in the process of dismantling and blowing up his hideout, but I did talk to him.”

Tim relished the look of pure shock that flashed across his face at that.

“You what,” he said, staring.

Just to irritate him, Tim said, “I dismantled and blew up-”

“I heard you the first time,” Damian interrupted. “That’s where you’ve been for the past few months, I presume?”

“Mostly,” Tim said with a light shrug. “It’s kept me busy.”

“And then you decided to kidnap me.”

“And then I kidnapped you, yes,” Tim said.

“Why?”

Tim held up a finger. “First, I happen to have triggered a civil war, and there’s a not-insignificant number in the League who still think you’re Ra’s’ rightful heir.”

“I have no affiliation with the League,” Damian said, a flash of irritation crossing his face.

“Tell that to them,” Tim said, shrugging. “If I were you, I would convince them to follow your mother. She’ll get power eventually anyway, but having them wouldn’t hurt.”

“How exactly did you start this civil war?” Damian asked, his voice strained.

Tim squashed the thread of rage that tried to rise and said, “I don’t like being used. Particularly when I’m too screwed up on Pit rage to realize. So I solved the problem. He’s not coming back.”

Damian was silent for a long moment before he asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“I figured you should have a heads-up,” Tim said, standing and walking towards the kitchen- if he sat still any longer he would lose control of the film of green trying to choke him. “Tea? It won’t be as good as Alfred’s, but it should be drinkable.”

“Are you going to poison it?” Damain asked dryly.

“If I wanted you dead you would be dead,” Tim said flippantly. “So no, not this time.”

“Reassuring,” Damian said behind him, and he grinned to himself as he headed over to make tea.

Talia had taught him how, during one brutal planning session that had stretched through two days. Normally, he preferred coffee, but not many in the League did, and he’d found that it didn’t always interact well with Pit rage on his worst days, so he’d learned to live without.

He made two mugs worth, although he didn’t intend on drinking his, and returned to the living room.

Damian accepted his mug and breathed in the smell, then took a tiny sip, expression intense as he focused on it- clearly, he didn’t trust Tim not to have poisoned it. After a moment, though, he seemed to decide it was safe, and held it between his hands, looking at Tim again.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

Tim sighed. He had to stop dancing around it eventually.

He turned the mug in his hands, trying to think of how to start. “The information that Ra’s gave me was… highly biased, and I wasn’t in a position to know what was real and what was lies or exaggeration,” he said eventually. “Now that I am… in control-” for a certain definition of in control, rage still colored his actions more than he liked- “I’m trying to find out the truth.”

“And so you thought to ask me,” Damian said, flat and skeptical.

Tim took a sip of the tea, savoring the taste, and said, “If there is one good thing I can say about you, it’s that you’re certainly… direct.”

“Direct,” Damian repeated.

“You did tell me to my face that you hated me,” Tim pointed out, unable to resist the dig. Damian flinched. 

Tim traced the edge of the mug with one gloved fingertip and hummed low in his throat. “You know, I hated you,” he said at last. “Even before the Pit. Ra’s tried to make me hate Jason, and Bruce, and Stephanie, and none of that worked. But you…”

Tim set the mug down and stood again, movements jerky and tightly controlled as he paced back and forth over the shitty carpet. “I admired you,” he said, and the words burned his throat as they spilled out, uncontrolled. “When I was just a stupid kid chasing after Batman and Robin, I admired you. And I thought- I honestly thought you might be happy, that I was Robin, that someone was there to take care of Bruce when you were off with Flamebird.”

Tim couldn’t help the anger that rose in his chest, but nor could he help the hurt. He’d left plenty in his grave, but he hadn’t left the pain of rejection behind, the memory of being twelve years old with his idol holding a staff to his throat.

And in some tiny part of him, he hadn’t left behind the admiration, either.

“And I met you and you told me everything I was terrified of, everything I hated about myself, was true,” Tim finished, something jagged in his chest that cut with every breath.

Damian didn’t look at him, staring into the mug in his hands, expression unreadable and blank.

“You were cruel,” Tim managed through the lump in his throat. “You were cruel when all I had ever wanted was for you to be my brother. And try as I might I cannot figure out what it is that is different, about Jason, that makes you _so_ protective of him, makes you _love_ him so much, when you never did me. I would say he’s just a better Robin than I was, only you never even saw what kind of Robin I was.”

Tim forced himself to breathe through the choking, through the feeling of his chest imploding, and he wasn’t nine or twelve or fifteen years old anymore and he was not a Bat and they would never be brothers now, not with all the blood and pain and six feet of dirt that lay between them, but Damian had little brothers he so clearly loved, when he had never given Tim a chance, had never given him anything but hatred, and that was _all_ that Tim had wanted for so, so long.

In some small, fragile part of his heart, he still wanted it. Even if he would never have it. He’d burned that bridge to cinders and he was more likely to get a cell in Arkham than a brother.

“It was never about you,” Damian said, almost too soft to hear. “I was… foolish and prideful. I thought it was my right to be Robin, to be Father’s partner, and that you had not earned that right.”

Somehow, it still stung.

“You’re right,” Damian said, still not looking up from the ground. “I was cruel. I didn’t realize it was wrong until it was far too late, and that will haunt me until I take my last breath.”

It was… Tim didn’t know what to feel. What to think. How to even begin to absorb that.

“I was twelve,” he said. “I was a child. And you saw nothing wrong with telling me I was nothing.”

Damian smiled, but there was no joy in it. “I am not a good man, Timothy,” he said. “I certainly wasn’t then.”

“Why Jason, then?” Tim said, burying the jagged pain under a mask of neutrality. “What makes him so special?”

“My little brother was dead,” Damian said, and Tim couldn’t hide a flinch at that, at the words, at _little brother._ “From my inaction and cruelty. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do better.”

“So you’re kind to Jason because of your guilt complex.”

“I am kind to Jason because he is my brother and I love him,” Damian said, face flashing to anger for a brief second before it collapsed back into devastation. “But I only learned to because I had done wrong, and I would never get the chance to fix what I had broken.”

Damian closed his eyes, and he looked… shattered, pained, the despair on his face making Tim’s breath catch. “Change doesn’t come without cataclysm. Your life was the price I paid for my awakening, and every moment that I am alive I wish it had not been so high.”

Tim couldn’t breathe.

He was- Damian was _admitting,_ that he had hurt him, but- but he-

All Tim had wanted was a brother. He’d _wanted_ Damian to say his death _mattered,_ that he cared, that he was _wrong_ and now-

He didn’t know what to do. All he could do was just keep breathing, even if the world was rocking beneath his feet.

Damian looked up at him, met his gaze, and his eyes were shiny with unshed tears, and Tim couldn’t read his expression, but if he wanted to try he thought he might call it… love, or grief, or maybe both.

“I know I cannot possibly hope to make up for who I used to be.” Damian’s voice was shaking. “Sometimes there are no second chances. All I can do is try to be better.”

Tim stared at him. Reminded himself to breathe.

It took a moment to remember how to speak. “Leave,” he croaked, and Damian looked up.

“Leave. Get out of my apartment.”

Damian stood, and hesitated in the doorway for a moment, then disappeared, the door shutting behind him with a soft click.

Tim’s knees collapsed out from under him without his permission, and he sank to the floor, burying his head in his arms. He was choking, drowning, and he couldn’t see through the blur of tears in his eyes and the memory of Damian’s shattered expression juxtaposed with his rage, and he couldn’t- he couldn’t-

He tried to steady his breaths and failed. For a long time, Tim just shook.

Even when he’d managed to stop hyperventilating, Tim didn’t get up, couldn’t bring himself to stand. The conversation was playing on loop in his mind, making his head spin, making him shake so badly he didn’t think he could keep his feet beneath him.

_Little brother, little brother, little brother._

He couldn’t… Even if he wanted to be Damian’s little brother, to be Bruce’s son, to go home, he couldn’t. He had done too much, had killed and maimed and destroyed too much, had made himself into the kind of criminal they fought, had gathered up the jagged, broken pieces of himself and used them to _cut._ He couldn’t go back. There was no family, no home left in the world for him.

Tim curled into himself and shook.

He spent a day hiding in his apartment, one more wiring the comm he’d taken from Damian into his glove- it was convenient to be able to listen to the Bats, it was a tactical advantage, that was _all-_ and one more gathering intel.

Then, skin itching with the urge to _move,_ he took to the streets.

His original plan hadn’t included his current targets, but he could adapt- they were still bad people and it _would_ improve Gotham to have them gone, so he spent four hours slipping in and out of apartments, not bothering to hack the cameras. The Bats knew who he was and so did the cops; what did he care if they saw him, if they couldn’t catch him?

The last of the targets was a cop who had been working with the mobs, who woke up when Tim entered his bedroom, jerking awake with a gasp. He went pale, scrambling back to hit the headboard.

“Please, please, please,” he gasped, voice shaking as he spoke. “Please, I know it was wrong, I know I was stupid but I stopped, _please.”_

Tim didn’t respond, just stalked closer.

“Please, Hood, please,” the man said, trembling. “I know I hurt people but I stopped when I adopted my daughter, she needs me, _please.”_

Tim… almost hesitated.

It wasn’t very long.

The man died in a spray of blood and Tim was out the window in moments, but not fast enough to avoid hearing, _“Daddy!”_

Tim froze on the fire escape, feeling suddenly sick.

After a long moment, he started to move again, heartbeat rushing in his ears.

_He didn’t need to die._

Tim didn’t regret killing, mostly- not the Joker, not Ra’s, not the assassins he had to kill for Talia’s fledgeling League to survive or the politicians who had to be taken out of office. He didn’t regret them but-

But Tim was… tired.

He didn’t care about the blood on his hands because he wasn’t a person anymore, he wasn’t someone who had a future. It didn’t matter if his soul was beyond saving, because he didn’t have one that mattered anymore.

Gotham needed a monster. When he was nothing but a ghost made solid, who better to become one?

But he… felt almost _alive_ again, for the first time since he’d died, felt almost as if his body was his own. And there were faces haunting him, Kon’s heartbroken eyes, the way Damian had looked when he said _my little brother,_ how Bruce’s voice had sounded when he said _Tim,_ so gently, like he still loved him after everything he’d done-

It was selfish, but Tim didn’t want to be a monster anymore. He wanted… Tim _wanted_ to be good. He wanted to go home, to like himself again, to be able to live with himself.

He wanted to live.

So slowly, Tim stopped killing. Intimidated his targets into resigning instead, left people injured instead of dead, tried not to feel sick when they begged not to be killed.

Of course, leaving them alive meant there were more people who could decide they needed to get revenge on him, and Tim was distracted enough to make it easy, to leave an opportunity for a group of angry criminals to track his movements, drag him to an abandoned warehouse, and chain him to a pole to torture before they eventually killed him.

It was a little too familiar for his liking. Although last time, he hadn’t been chained to a pole- hadn’t even been bound. That was not, however, a positive.

What _was_ a positive was he was no longer fifteen years old and afraid, and he didn’t expect anyone to come for him.

He didn’t bother to listen to the man’s monologuing- something about revenge, how much he’d ruined, watching him for weeks, _whatever,_ Tim didn’t really care. He fiddled with the cuffs behind his back, testing them, trying to get to the lockpick built into his glove.

It was somewhat interrupted by the fact that the ringleader had a baton with him, and wasn’t shy about using it- Tim thought he had a few broken ribs, enough to make every breath hurt.

They also had a taser, which they used plenty. Tim was… finding it hard to think, after about an hour of it, his entire body buzzing. He was cuffed too tightly to pick the lock, and even if he dislocated his thumb he wouldn’t have been able to escape them. Nor did he have the strength to fight them. And most of his electronics had been taken when they broke his mask, leaving it in pieces on the ground. He was running out of options.

One of the men paused to whisper something to the leader, and he growled, gesturing. For a few moments, Tim was alone.

And a few moments was all he needed.

Carefully, he fiddled with his glove until he could reach the button connected to his stolen comm, and pressed it.

“Bats.”

None of them responded, and Tim paused to cough, tasting blood in his throat.

“If any of you still love me at all, you won’t let me die again,” he said into the silence. “I’m not holding out much hope. But I like my life more than I like my pride.”

Tim waited, breathing though it made his ribs scream, and tried not to think about screaming until his throat tore. About how he’d died screaming.

_“I’m coming,”_ Damian said, and Tim sagged against his chains in relief.

Now, he just had to wait.

The criminals returned a minute later, and by the time Nightwing dropped from the ceiling Tim was shuddering with pain. He couldn’t track the fight that followed, or parse the words they snarled at each other, but suddenly Damian was standing in front of him, concern etched in his face, and the chains were sliding off, and Tim collapsed into his arms.

He couldn’t hold back a pained whimper as Damian ran a gentle hand down his chest, brushing the broken ribs.

“Shh, shh, little one, I’m here, you’re going to be fine,” Damian whispered, and Tim almost cried.

“Didn’t think-” he had to stop to cough, tasting copper on his lips- “you would come.”

Damian leaned over him, pressed his lips to Tim’s forehead tenderly. “I’m here, Timothy, I’m here, I love you.”

“‘M sorry,” Tim said, unable to catch his breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Hush.” Damian kissed his forehead again. “You’re forgiven, little one.”

Tim coughed and it made his chest ache. “Hurts.”

“I know,” Damian murmured, soft. “I’m here, I won’t leave you. You’re going to be fine, I have you, little brother.”

“I want to go home,” Tim whispered. Damian’s face was swimming above him, indistinct, and there was darkness creeping at the edges of his vision. “I w-want-”

There was a hand in his hair, and the sound of voices, and suddenly he was being lifted from the ground, a scream dying in his chest, and there was a familiar silhouette against him.

“Dad,” he whispered, and Bruce took his hand.

He jerked awake again when he was carried out of the car, and a blurry face appeared above him. “Steph,” Tim managed through bloody lips.

He didn’t hear the response, darkness closing over him.

Tim woke up in an unfamiliar room, fuzzy with painkillers, and there was someone beside him.

“Where am I?” he rasped.

“One of the spare bedrooms,” Damian said. “We assumed you would prefer it to your original.”

“Yes,” Tim said distractedly, noting the empty chair beside Damian’s.

“Father and I have been taking it in shifts,” he said, as if it was utterly reasonable. “He’s asleep right now. Alfred’s orders.”

They… _what?_

“You… stayed,” Tim said. Everything felt fuzzy and slow, and his thoughts kept slipping out of his grasp.

“I told you I would,” Damian said, like it was obvious.

“You came for me.”

Damian looked at him, and there was something warm in his eyes, something soft and impossibly gentle, and it didn’t feel _real._ Nothing felt possible.

“I love you,” Damian said quietly, taking Tim’s hand in his own. “Even if you do not want me to. Even if you don’t consider me your brother. I love you, and that will never change.”

Tim stared at him, every breath shaking. _Even after everything?_

“I’m not a good person,” he pointed out. “I’ve killed people. Lots of people.”

Damian just… smiled at him. “So have I. We’re not defined by our worst selves, little one. We’re defined by who we choose to be.”

Tim couldn’t help but smile- he’d only ever heard Damian say that to _Titus._ “Thought that was your name for your pets.”

“No,” Damian said. “It’s my name for family.”

Tim squeezed his hand rather than respond to that, then swallowed, his mood sinking. “Even if you forgive me. Even if you… understand. Bruce won’t forgive me for killing.”

Bruce had never tolerated his rules being broken, hated killers more than anyone. For his son to be a killer was- unthinkable.

But Damian didn’t seem swayed. “He forgave me. He can forgive you. We’ll figure it out.”

Tim almost shook his head, but thought better of it. “That’s… you’re different.”

“How?” Damian asked. “We were manipulated by the same man, Timothy. We were both vulnerable, even if in different ways. You chose to kill, yes, but so did I.”

Tim wanted to protest, wanted to say _no, you were a child, no, I knew better,_ but he couldn’t find the words. He turned away, throat tight.

Damian leaned forwards and kissed his forehead, softly, kindly, and it made something small in Tim’s heart ache.

He winced as he pulled away, and Tim frowned at his arm, wrapped in bandages under his sleeve. “You’re hurt.”

“It’ll heal,” Damian said, as if it was nothing.

As if it didn’t matter that he’d been hurt saving Tim, as if his own injuries meant nothing in the face of Tim’s safety. As if he was…

As if he was important.

“Okay,” Tim said eventually. “Thank you. For saving me.”

“Always,” Damian said simply. “Every time.”

“Why are you so…” Tim paused, tried to find the words. “Damian, you don’t even know me. You didn’t know me when I was still alive, so why…”

“Because you’re my brother,” Damian said. “I don’t know you, but I’d like to.”

“I…” Tim swallowed, staring at where Damian was still holding his hand.

It didn’t feel possible. Not after everything. But maybe- maybe he could… have a home, again.

Maybe he could finally admit he was alive.

“Okay,” he said, finally. “I’d like that.”

Being back in the Manor felt… strange. Especially since everyone seemed inclined to act as if he’d never left.

Alfred, Bruce, and Damian ducked in and out of his room to check on him often, and Steph and Duke kept him company, laughing and joking with him and each other just as he remembered. When he was healed enough to stand, Duke dragged him downstairs to play video games, ones they’d played together before as well as ones that had come out in the years he’d been gone.

The kids kept their distance for a while. Jason and Cassandra- Cass- seemed inseparable, and he never really saw one without the other. Dick was usually found clinging to either Damian or Bruce, or climbing on everything in sight. Tim let them keep their distance.

He couldn’t help the flash of guilt every time he saw Jason, from the memory of his screaming when Tim shot him. Jason didn’t seem entirely comfortable around him, either, never impolite or obvious about it but never seeking Tim out, which meant Cass didn’t either, and he didn’t try to push.

At least, Jason didn’t seek him out for a month after TIm had been injured. He was healed enough to leave, at that point, but he’d… lingered.

Jason walked into his room on a Saturday afternoon, closely followed by Cass, and sat in one of the chairs by his bed. He propped his feet up on the bed, opened the book in his hands, and adjusted it so Cass could read over his shoulder.

Tim looked up from his laptop. “Uh,” he said, slowly. “Hi?”

“Hi,” Jason said. Tim blinked at him.

“Did you… want something, or are you just here to read?”

“Just here to read,” he said, but it was clearly a lie. Cass knew it, too, by the way she raised her eyebrows at him, but she didn’t say anything.

“Okay,” Tim said. Jason would talk when he wanted to- there was a stubborn set to his chin, hiding what Tim thought was nervousness, and anyway he didn’t feel like fighting the kid on it.

Jason started to fidget about ten minutes in, but Tim didn’t look up, at least until Cass started poking Jason in the ribs.

“Talk,” she said, sternly.

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Just here to read?”

Jason reddened, but closed his book, carefully putting a bookmark in before he set it aside. “I wanted to know who it was that everyone was missing.”

Tim raised an eyebrow at that.

“I mean,” Jason started, then stopped. “I mean, like, I was adopted after you died. And everyone was really… sad, ‘cuz it had only been six months, and Damian was all guilty all the time and B didn’t really talk to anyone and Steph and Duke and Alfred were… better, mostly ‘cuz Damian was trying to take care of them all, but sometimes they’d all look at me like I was supposed to be someone else.”

Tim shut his laptop, set it aside, looked at Jason fully.

“I wasn’t… I mean, I never meant to take your place,” Jason said. “Like, B just picked me up off the street, and then Robin-”

“It’s okay,” Tim said. “It’s- Robin wasn’t ever really mine. I was never going to be the last one.”

“But you don’t like that I’m Robin,” Jason pointed out.

Tim sighed. “No. I don’t. You’re a kid, and you don’t have powers like Duke or the training that Damian and I have. It isn’t safe for you to be out there, and you’re going to get hurt.”

Jason shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But I can’t just sit and watch while people are getting hurt. And I’m from Crime Alley. I know what a difference we make.”

“Which is why I’m not trying to convince you otherwise,” Tim said. “But you asked why I don’t like that you’re Robin, and that’s why.”

Jason nodded. “And you’re not, like- mad B adopted me or anything?”

Tim was startled into a laugh. “Kid, B has been picking up random kids for like seven years now. There being an extra three is possibly the _least_ surprising thing about being back.”

Jason grinned. Then, suddenly, his eyes lit up. “Wait, if you’ve been out of Gotham for years- or just busy, uh, killing people- then you haven’t been to the food truck by the old bookstore on Sixth!”

“I haven’t,” Tim said. “Should I?”

“Best fries in Gotham,” Jason declared. “We’ll show you after patrol sometime.”

Tim blinked. “I… don’t think Bruce will want me going on patrol.”

“Why not?”

“Because I kill people?” Tim raised an eyebrow.

Cass shook her head and held up her hands. It took him a moment to realize she was using sign language.

_You won’t kill anyone,_ she declared, her eyes full of quiet conviction. _We all know._

Tim took a steadying breath, fighting the urge to run from the faith in her eyes.

“First patrol,” he promised. “You can show me the food truck.”

Jason’s grin was blinding.

Things settled, eventually. Tim did move back to his own apartment- he was too used to having his own space to stay in the Manor- but he came over for dinner once a week, ended up with someone- usually Jason and Cass, sometimes the older ones- in his apartment more often than that, moved into a wheelchair-accessible apartment rather than the top floor one he had, tried not to panic at the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He did eventually go out on the streets again, sliding neatly into the Bats’ system of patrols, and although Bruce clearly disapproved of him using guns, he didn’t say anything about it other than to leave rubber bullets in his apartment every so often. Grudgingly, Tim used them, and pretended not to see Bruce’s satisfaction.

Steph dropped in fairly often, taking his move as an invitation- which it wasn’t… _not-_ and inserted herself into his life and his space without permission nor apology. He came home to find her rummaging through his cupboards or his fridge, or going through his bookshelves, or doing her homework in his living room. It was… odd.

He had known her so well, once, had been as close to her as Jason and Cass were. Now… she was more like a stranger who resembled his sister. He didn’t know the classes she was taking, what she was interested in, what made her look so sad when she thought he wasn’t looking.

He staggered back to his apartment after a long, exhausting patrol to find her muttering to herself as she hunched over her laptop. He just blinked at her.

“You hurt?” she asked, not looking up.

“No.” Slowly, he took off his gear, tucked it away, and stumbled into his bedroom. He was asleep within minutes.

He didn’t stay asleep for long- he hadn’t slept without nightmares since he’d been resurrected. Still, this one was worse than normal, tinged with green and terror and the feeling of explosions, and Ra’s’ hungry eyes and shattering bones. He woke up screaming.

“Tim,” Steph called from where she was silhouetted in the doorway. “Hey, Tim, wake up.”

He went for the knife he kept close, and Steph ducked, the blade whizzing inches past her face.

_“Tim,”_ she called, a little more urgently. “You’re safe. It’s just me.”

Slowly, the green film faded, and Tim relaxed.

“Sorry,” he croaked, getting unsteadily to his feet and going to pull the knife from the wall.

“It’s alright, I get it.” She watched him as he dragged a hand through his hair- tangled, from how he’d been thrashing as he slept- and set the knife on the counter, out of his reach.

“Did I wake you?”

“Nah, I was pulling an all-nighter. I’ve got an essay due tomorrow.” Her tone was light, but her eyes were heavy with concern.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked eventually, when he didn’t say anything.

He huffed something that might have been generously called a laugh. “It was Joker and Ra’s and the Pit. I get them all the time.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it,” she pointed out. He sighed, and went to make himself tea.

“I get them too,” she said, when the silence stretched again. “About seeing the gun pointed at me, and just feeling _nothing_ below the waist, and the laughter.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Tim said, without turning around. Steph sighed.

“Yeah. Me too.”

He busied himself with the tea to distract himself from his shaking hands, body tense even in the safety of his own apartment.

“You haven’t said anything, about your time with the League.”

Tim didn’t respond for a moment, then sighed. “No. I haven’t.”

“Why?”

Tim breathed in the smell of the tea, let the steam settle him, and reminded himself that he was safe here. That the ones he was terrified of were dead, and his life was his own.

“I did a lot of terrible things,” he said eventually. “Things that you… shouldn’t have to bear.”

“I don’t have to,” Steph said. “I want to.”

He turned around, and she was watching him calmly, with no judgement in her eyes, and she knew what he had done, had seen the footage and knew the numbers, and still she loved him.

“It’s… I was dreaming about the Joker,” he said. “At first. And then it was the Pit. It… The Pit isn’t… describable. It puts you back together, yeah, but my body wasn’t meant to survive everything he did to me. It hurts as bad as dying, and then more, because you’re confused and scared and you have no idea what’s happening to you, and it… burns. Like acid.”

Steph didn’t say anything. He took a breath, sat on the counter, looked into his tea so he wouldn’t have to meet her eyes.

“Pit rage is- you saw some of it, Damian probably saw some more, but it’s worse at first. I couldn’t think, couldn’t process anything, and Ra’s took advantage of it. He used me and I didn’t notice until after I’d come back to Gotham, and he called me back and suddenly I saw that it had always been there.”

He swallowed, went silent for a long moment.

“I didn’t… realize I was alive, for a while,” he said quietly. “It felt fake. Like I died and only part of me came back.”

Steph rolled over to sit beside him, resting her head against his knee. They sat in silence for a moment.

“You’re alive,” she said eventually. “I don’t know what you had to go through to get there. You can tell me, if you like, but you don’t have to. But right now, you’re alive. And I’m glad you are.”

“Me too,” Tim said, quietly.

He thought he might actually mean it.

Tim walked into the kitchen of the Manor late at night- or maybe early in the morning, he wasn’t quite sure- to see Cass sitting on the counter, bare feet swinging, eating peanut butter with a spoon.

“Hi,” she said.

He went to the sink and filled up a glass of water. “No Jason?”

“Still asleep.”

“Nightmares?” he asked, leaning against the counter. She didn’t respond.

He shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me, but you can. Bet we get some of ours from the same people.”

“Mm,” she said, vaguely. “Met him?”

“Cain?”

She nodded, and he sighed. “Yeah. He was one of my teachers. He was… well, he wasn’t trying to do to me what he did with you, so he actually wasn’t all that bad. But I ended up killing him once I was done.”

She looked up at him, frowning. “You…”

“Yeah.” Tim hopped up to sit beside her. “I heard the rumors. And- well, maybe if I hadn’t been dealing with the Pit I would’ve done it differently, but people like him don’t deserve to go unpunished.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t read, and he shifted uncomfortably.

“I know you don’t like killing. Probably more than Bruce, even. But I did, and we both have to live with that, so- judge me all you want, but it’s not going away.”

Cass licked the spoon clean, then screwed the jar shut, set them both down, and jumped to the floor with a light grace no one else could quite replicate. She held out a hand.

“What?” he asked.

_Dance with me,_ she signed, pulling out her phone. A few moments later, music was playing from the speakers, quiet enough not to wake anyone else in the house- classical music, without any of the words that frustrated her.

“I don’t know ballet,” he said, a little confused. Off-balance.

She shrugged one shoulder. _Doesn’t have to be ballet._

Hesitantly, he took her hand.

She dragged him around the kitchen in lazy circles for a moment, thinking, then returned to her phone and switched the music to something brighter, with a strong, fast beat.

Tim allowed himself to be pulled into the dance, a little uncomfortable, but letting her tug him into the motion. Slowly, slowly, he relaxed, his movements going looser, until he wasn’t just letting himself be pulled anymore.

Eventually, Cass came to a stop, and he did too. She didn’t let go of his hand, though, and it was warm against his.

“You’re… hiding,” she said, slowly, the sounds coming out careful and precise.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, a little stiff.

She smiled slightly, and Tim was abruptly reminded why he’d been uncomfortable around her before.

Anyone else in the family could see lies. Cass could see the lie, the truth, and why you were hiding.

“Think we judge,” she said. “For… hurting.”

“I have blood on my hands, Cass.”

She tilted her head curiously, looking down at where she still held his hand. He sighed.

“It’s not literal. I just meant I’ve killed a lot of people.”

“I know,” she said simply. “And you worry that-”

She stopped, frowning, free hand opening and closing like she could snatch the word she wanted from the air.

“You can sign if you prefer,” Tim said.

_You’re worried that we will not forgive you,_ she signed, letting go of his hand. _Scared of what is coming. Of the…_

She paused. “Con… consequences?”

“Yeah,” Tim said. “I- uh, yeah, that’s the word you’re looking for.”

She looked at him, dark eyes clever and kind. “You don’t have to… be afraid,” she said quietly. “You are… family. Big brother. We will not let you go.”

“If I was anyone else I’d be in jail,” Tim said, not meeting her eyes. “Of course I’m worried you’ll decide that I should be.”

She frowned at him for a long moment, and took his face in both her hands. Reluctantly, he turned to look at her, somewhat afraid of what it was she saw.

“You deserve good,” she said, forcing him to meet her eyes. “You are not… you’re not unforgivable.”

“How can you be sure,” he rasped.

“I do not like killing,” she said. “It is… wrong. Always. And I forgive you.”

Tim sighed, softly, letting his head drop to rest against hers. “I don’t know how to… believe that. That I deserve this. This… life, this family, this chance. I’m not the same kid who died, Cass.”

_I didn’t know him._ She took her hands off his face to sign, but didn’t take her eyes off his. _I know you. You deserve good._

Tim took a breath. Then another. And another.

“Okay,” he said.

She leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to his forehead lightly, then smiled, mischievous. “Spar with me.”

Tim huffed a soft laugh. “You just want to kick my ass. No.”

“Scared?” she asked with a cheeky grin.

“Yes, and rightfully so,” he said, poking her in the ribs. “Tell you what. You teach me to dance, and I’ll let you drive my bike once.”

She giggled. _Dad will kill you._

“He can try,” Tim said flippantly, and held out a hand. “Shall we?”

Cass grinned and took it.

Tim had been back with the Bats for two months before he worked up the courage to speak to anyone else. He’d had friends, before he died, people who had missed him. Most of them, he wasn’t close enough to to expend the energy to explain, tell them what he’d become and why. He wasn’t the same person they wanted, anyway, not after everything.

The rest of them… the rest of them, he just didn’t want to face.

Tim drove out away from Gotham for a while, until the city faded away into snowy forests, the wind biting through his clothes. Eventually, he found an open field, white and clear, and pulled over.

He parked his bike and leaned against it, took a steadying breath.

He was scared. He could admit that to himself.

Tim was _terrified,_ actually. The Bats hadn’t told anyone outside the family much, hadn’t told anyone about the Pit and the manipulation and the murder and how he’d stopped. Which left it on him, to tell it, and to see the despair as they realized he wasn’t who they wanted him to be anymore.

“Kon,” he said, not bothering to shout. “Bring Cassie and Bart.”

Then he waited, staring towards the horizon as the snow fell silently.

There was a _crack-boom_ of the broken sound barrier, and a rush of air that stirred up the snow in its wake, followed by a rooster tail as boots pounded in the snow.

Tim didn’t meet their eyes as the three came to a stop in front of him.

“Tim?” Kon asked, hesitant.

He took a shuddery breath. “Wasn’t sure if you would come.”

“Of course we did,” he said, blinking. “Why did you call?”

Tim scuffed at the snow with the tip of his boot, unable to look up. “Figured I owed you an explanation.”

“You don’t owe us anything,” Cassie said. “But yeah, we’d like one.”

“You were kind of…” Bart paused, taking a moment to think that would have seemed short for anyone else. “Off, last time we saw you.”

Tim smiled humorlessly. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

They fell into silence, until finally Kon asked, “What happened, Tim?”

“I died,” he said, simply. “And I came back. Lazarus Pit, courtesy of Ra’s al Ghul.”

None of them said anything, just waited for him to continue.

“Long story short he manipulated me,” Tim said, tapping his heel against the tire. “I was… not in my right mind. And he wanted a weapon to use against B, and to… make into his heir, maybe. I never asked. But I did a lot of bad things.”

He took another breath, tipped his head back to stare at the pale grey clouds, still unable to meet their eyes. “Killed a lot of people. Bad people, sure, people who deserved it, but a lot of people. Shot Robin because he was in my way. Destroyed a _lot_ of things. Gotham needed a monster, and I was already dead, so what did a bit of blood on my hands matter?”

One of them made a choked noise at that, but didn’t speak.

Tim went silent for a long moment, then continued.

“I won’t make you listen to the details,” he said, more lightly than he felt. “I hate knowing them enough for all of us, anyway. And you don’t need to… say it’s okay, or anything, because it’s not. Nothing that I’ve done is okay. You just deserved to know.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, stared at the ground, and waited.

Cassie was the first to move. “Oh, Tim,” she said, and stepped forwards, the snow crunching under her boots, to hug him tightly. He didn’t move, but it was… nice. She was warm.

“You’re still Tim,” Kon added, moving to join them. “Our Tim. Nothing you could ever do would change that.”

Bart hit them hard- he’d slipped into superspeed without realizing- and what he said was hopelessly jumbled beyond comprehension, an entire sentence stuffed into less than a second.

Kon smiled. “He said he loves you.”

“You’re still you,” Cassie said, squeezing him. “And we’re just happy to have you back.”

“I don’t know if I am,” Tim admitted. “It’s- I… It’s been a long few years. And dying changed a lot, and everything that came after… I’m not the person I used to be.”

Cassie smiled, pressed her forehead against his hair. “Neither are we. That’s just what growing up is.”

“I’m not…” Tim hesitated. “I’m not really a hero anymore.”

“Do you think we love you because of what you did?” Bart asked, tilting his head with a frown. “We didn’t love you because you were Robin, it’s ‘cuz you’re _Tim._ And even if you’ve changed that doesn’t matter.”

Tim sighed. “I don’t know what I think, Bart, I… things are better than they were but I’m still not- the Pit damaged my memory and I never really got all of it back. And sometimes I’m still not all there.”

“Tim,” Kon said. “Tim. Please look at me.”

Tim did, and nearly crumbled at the look in his eyes.

“We don’t care,” Kon said softly. “Whatever your trauma, your guilt, whatever it is you’re carrying- it doesn’t matter. You’re still our friend, and we have you _back_ now, and that’s- that’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time. So stop trying to talk us out of loving you.”

Tim leaned his head against Kon’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he whispered. “It’s good to be back.”

It was still snowing, the air crisp and chill, but held between them Tim was warm.

Months after he’d come back, he still hadn’t touched Dick for longer than a few moments.

It wasn’t because the boy didn’t like to be touched- he loved it, thrived on it, and he climbed all over Damian and Bruce and Duke, launched himself at Jason and Cass from high places, held Alfred’s hand when he followed the man around the house, sat in Steph’s lap whenever she was willing, which was often. And when he started to bring his friend, Barbara, they hugged each other frequently, slept in a pile on the floor, leaned on and poked each other near-constantly. It was only Tim who he wasn’t touching constantly.

It was because he stiffened whenever Dick touched him, he knew- the kid had _tried,_ grabbed his hand or arm once or twice, leaned on him for balance. He’d never tried to leap into his arms from the upper banister like he had with the rest of them, which was… honestly a relief.

He didn’t dislike Dick. He didn’t even dislike being touched. He just…

Dick was so _small._ Vulnerable and breakable. He barely came up to Tim’s waist, and his limbs were so thin and fragile, and Tim-

If he wanted to, he could _break_ the boy. And though he had a grip on the madness, most of the time, could suffocate the green like a fire starved of oxygen, he was still… almost afraid, to touch him, to know that his hands which had broken so much could so easily do so to this tiny, smiling child.

So he didn’t touch Dick. Dick seemed to be fine with this, and he had enough people to climb on that it didn’t seem like much of a hardship.

Which was why it was such a surprise when Dick sat next to him on the couch, fiddling with the edges of his sleeves, and asked in a tiny voice, “Do you not like me?”

Tim startled, blinking, and asked, “What?”

“You don’t want to be around me,” Dick said. “And Jay and Cass hug you all the time, an’ so does Steph, but whenever it’s me you don’t like it.”

Tim sighed. “It’s not that I don’t like you, Dick, I promise. I just… worry about hurting you.”

“Why?” the boy asked. “I trust you.”

“It’s not that simple.” Tim grimaced. “I would never try to, but I know I _could,_ even if I didn’t want to. And that scares me.”

Dick hummed, wiggling a little bit in his seat. “Well, I haven’t seen you hurt someone by accident. And if you were gonna, someone would stop you.”

Tim… had to admit he had a point. Bruce and Damian didn’t seem to have any issue with him being around Dick, and they were fiercely protective of him. If they thought Tim was a threat, he wouldn’t even be allowed in the same room as him.

He cracked a smile. “You’re pretty smart, kid.”

Dick grinned, showing off his missing front tooth, and jumped off the couch, rolling into a handstand. “You were just being silly.”

“I suppose I was,” Tim said, and stood. “Has anyone taught you how to make Alfred’s hot chocolate?”

“Bruce hasn’t said anything.” Dick dropped his feet to the floor, then bounced into a cartwheel.

Tim chuckled. “He doesn’t know how. Alfred taught Damian and Duke, and Duke taught me and Steph, and Damian taught Cass and Jason. So now I’ll teach you.”

Dick came right side up again, bouncing on his toes. “Really?”

“Sure,” Tim said. “I’m your big brother. It’s my job.”

Dick giggled brightly, and after a moment’s hesitation, Tim held out his arms.

The kid’s eyes went wide, and he leaped at him, tucking his head into Tim’s shoulder. Tim settled him in his arms carefully, and headed towards the kitchen.

Maybe he could learn to be alright at this big brother thing after all.

Bruce was… not how Tim remembered.

The Pit had damaged his memory, sure, left gaps that ached when he looked too closely, and Bruce hadn’t had a full personality transplant or anything. But he thought he remembered Bruce being… a little brighter, a little easier to read. More likely to use his words instead of grunts or stony silence, more likely to let himself be helped. He seemed… hard, now, and Tim wasn’t sure why.

So he went to the man who’d known him longest.

Alfred sighed, heavy and tired, when he asked what happened. “He lost you, lad.”

“Oh,” Tim said. “He…”

Alfred’s mouth turned up in something that wasn’t really a smile. “Your father lost a son, and he does not deal well with loss. Even though we have you back, he is… not the same person he was.”

Tim felt a flash of guilt at that, at the sad, tired look on Alfred’s face. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“My dear boy, what for?” Alfred asked, seeming genuinely surprised. “Your return is a miracle we could never have asked for. Do not apologize for the things you can’t control.”

“Okay,” Tim said after a moment, and Alfred smiled at him, warm and affectionate.

“Would you fetch Master Bruce for me?” he asked.

“Sure,” Tim said. “He in the Cave?”

“I believe so.”

He found B sitting at the Batcomputer, fingers laced together, staring at the screen. It almost looked like he was doing nothing, but that was just how he thought- he wasn’t like Tim, who needed mindless motion to make the connections for detective work, or Steph, who thought out loud whether someone was listening or not. Bruce sat motionless, in silence, until suddenly, minutes or hours later, he had the answer. 

“Hey,” Tim said, leaning on the edge of the desk. “Alfred’s looking for you.”

“Mm,” Bruce said, not looking away from the computer.

“It’s ten in the morning and you got back from patrol at two. Have you slept?”

“Hn,” he said.

“B.”

“I’ve slept,” he said distractedly, and Tim sighed.

“Should I just tell Alfred to drag you upstairs?”

“Nn,” Bruce said, and after a moment, “I’ll go in a minute.”

Tim drifted over to look at the cases. Finally, he ended on his own, with his old Robin costume, and the plaque.

_A good soldier._

“Why did you put this up?”

Bruce stopped, and looked up. He didn’t answer.

“I mean, it’s… I don’t understand. Why would you put it up? Why _keep_ it up for three years? Why the plaque?”

“To remind me,” Bruce said, slow and careful, “what you should not have become.”

“...What?”

Bruce looked back at the computer, away from Tim, and said, “You should not have had to be Robin. You shouldn’t have had to take care of me.”

Tim stopped, placed a hand against the glass, studied the half of Bruce’s face that he could see.

“B,” he said. “You know I don’t regret it, right?”

Bruce lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t respond.

Tim sighed. “I don’t regret being Robin. If I hadn’t, I would have just stayed in that empty house alone, for the rest of my life. And sure, I died, but-”

He stopped, took a breath.

“I don’t regret it,” he said, firm. “Any of it. B… stop blaming yourself. You didn’t kill me, by letting me be Robin or anything else.”

“I wish…” Bruce closed his eyes. “If I could-”

“You can’t go back,” Tim said, harsher than he intended. “And I wouldn’t want you to anyway.”

He paused, and took a moment to soften his tone. “You’re stuck in the past, B,” Tim said. “You can’t change it. But we deal with what we have, and I’m alive. I’m alive.”

Tim tapped his knuckles against the glass. “This? Is the monument to a dead kid. But I’m not dead, B. You’ve gotta stop acting like it.”

A muscle twitched in Bruce’s jaw.

“I’ll take it down.”

“Good.” Tim smirked. “If you don’t I’m going to smash it.”

“Tim.”

“It’d be cathartic,” he called over his shoulder as he headed towards the stairs. “And go find Alfred!”

Tim laughed at the heavy sigh and took one last look at the case, then at Bruce.

He smiled.

He was alive.

Tim’s first birthday back at the Manor sparked a debate on the meaning of age- Tim pointed out that he had been dead for ten days, so technically he would turn nineteen on July twenty-ninth. Steph declared that a stupid argument and decided that his birthday had nothing to do with his actual age; Damian, when asked, refused to pick a side, which made Tim and Steph both decide they had to get him to agree with them; Bruce attempted to solve the debate by saying that Tim’s _birthday_ was on July nineteenth, but he wouldn’t actually turn nineteen for ten days. Which they both decided was a dumb compromise, and escalated the miniature war by silent agreement.

It was… surreal, that they’d gotten to a point where they could debate playfully and he never felt green creeping in at the edges of his vision, even when Steph started throwing pillows at him. Surreal that his birthday made him smile, was a day for joy again, when before it had been just a reminder of the life he hadn’t gotten to live.

He had only ever had three happy birthdays, before.

In the end, they celebrated his birthday on the nineteenth, like usual. Tim went the whole day with an odd floaty feeling, and had to remind himself twice that he wasn’t dreaming. That his entire second life hadn’t been a dream, that he hadn’t imagined himself a family, a life, that he hadn’t dreamed himself happiness.

He let Dick jump into his arms, hugged Jason and Cass and ruffled his little brother’s hair to see him bristle like an offended cat, played video games with Duke and Damian while Steph heckled them from the corner, went out to lunch with Bruce. In the evening, they had dinner and for once no one fought, or complained.

When it was over, Alfred lit a candle and held it out to him.

“I- oh,” Tim said. He’d forgotten. “Right.”

“It’s tradition,” Jason pointed out. “You have to.”

Tim stared at the soft, flickering light, and tried to think.

“You don’t have to,” Bruce said quietly, when the silence stretched. “If you don’t want to-”

“No,” Tim interrupted, and shook his head. “Right. The thing I’m most grateful for?”

He watched the flame as it dipped and danced, ruffled by his soft breath.

The year had been… well. At his eighteenth birthday, he’d been a murderer with no plans of stopping. At eighteen, he’d been self-destructing, knowing he couldn’t keep going forever and unable to bring himself to care. He’d had his hands drenched in blood and he hadn’t thought it mattered when he wasn’t even supposed to be alive.

He still hadn’t _realized,_ then, that he was alive. That he wanted to be.

Now… 

Now, he knew. Now he could think _I am alive, I am alive, I am alive_ and it didn’t taste like a lie in the back of his throat. Now, he could joke about his death without having a panic attack, even if he still woke up screaming. He could look at what he’d done, and forgive himself for it, and believe he deserved to be forgiven.

A year ago, he’d had only three people in the world who loved him. A year ago, Tim had been alone in a city that was his and yet a stranger, had been furious and vengeful and had not wanted a family. A year ago, he’d been no one. Just a phantom who could kill.

Now, he had friends, and a family, and he knew who he was again. He wasn’t no one, wasn’t nothing.

He was someone’s brother. He was someone’s son.

He still had bad days, days where he couldn’t breathe through the ghost of Lazarus waters in his lungs, where the injuries from his death felt like they were real again, like they would be there forever, days where the ragged autopsy scar on his chest ached so badly that he couldn’t get out of bed, days where he couldn’t go near Dick for fear he would lose control and snap his fragile limbs, days where he couldn’t look at Damian without wanting to rip his throat out. Days where he looked at Kon and thought I _screamed for you, I screamed and screamed and you didn’t come._ Days where he looked at Bruce and wondered how he could even look Tim in the eye.

But there were days where he could tease and play with his siblings without the breath catching in his chest, where he could dance in the kitchen with Cass and let Dick climb on his shoulders, where he could pester Jason and Duke and drape himself on the back of Steph’s chair, where he could hug his dad without the guilt strangling him, where he could laugh with his friends and feel fifteen years old again. There were days where he could hold the hand of a scared little kid on patrol and not think of what those hands had done. Days where he could look up at the Batsymbol glowing gold against the clouds and not hate himself more than he wanted to live.

He was alive. He was alive. And that was… that was a good thing.

He wanted to live.

“I’m grateful I’m alive,” he said, and blew out the candle.

Timothy Drake-Wayne was an unusual man.

He was traumatized, and skilled, and angry, and he lived alone but he saw his siblings nearly every day. He was dangerous, but he knew how to take that danger, forge it like a blade and use it against the ones who would hurt the innocent, the afraid, the city he loved, the people in it.

He walked like a secret and had skin inhumanly cold to the touch, had more scars than he did skin, had eyes that burned when he was furious or afraid or in pain. He made people feel like all of their masks were flaking away, crumbling to dust, like he could open them up and see what was inside.

But for all his danger and rage, he was gentle, and protective, and kind.

Timothy Drake-Wayne was an assassin, and a criminal, and a soldier. He was a vigilante and a ghost and a protector even of those who didn’t deserve it.

He was a brother and a son. He was a Bat and a Wayne.

Tim was nineteen years old, and he was finally home.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment or leave a kudos if you enjoyed it, and come find me @weareallstardustfallen on tumblr to say hi, ask questions about this au, or tell me what you thought!


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